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[Assistant] There are several iterations of the tale, all of which end the same way, with Emily's spirit haunting the now namesake bridge. According to one version of the legend, Emily was a teenage girl living either in the 1920s or the mid-1800s. She was involved with a young man whom she loved deeply, so much so that the two had planned on getting married.


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[Assistant] They agreed to meet one day at the covered bridge. Some say the wedding itself was set to occur right there. Unfortunately, Emily's parents didn't approve of her suitor. On the day they were scheduled to wed, Emily's lover didn't arrive at the bridge at the appointed hour. She was distraught, and in her anguish, she hanged herself there from the rafters.


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[Assistant] Another version of the story claims that Emily was a young bride waiting at the altar for a groom who never showed up at the church. In that story, Emily jumped into a carriage and sped away, possibly off to confront her fiancé herself. But in her anger and sadness, she accidentally went careening into a rock-filled brook near the bridge.


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[Assistant] And in a third version of Emily's tragic tale, she's seen jumping off the side of the bridge. The only problem with that variation, though, is that the bridge isn't too far off the ground, so it was more likely that she jumped from a higher spot nearby.


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[Assistant] Of course, thanks to classic tales like Romeo and Juliet, stories of ill-fated lovers with disapproving parents often involve some kind of violence, and Emily's is no different.


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[Assistant] It's been suggested that she was killed on the bridge by her fiance's mother to keep them from getting married. And others claim that she told her lover that she was pregnant and excited to have a child with him. But he did not take the news well, and she threatened to tell the whole town about it if he left her. To keep her quiet, they say he killed her and possibly left town.


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[Assistant] And I'll be honest, the narrative surrounding Emily's tragic wedding day changes so much with each retelling it's hard to pin down one specific account.


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[Assistant] But don't come to Stowe thinking that you'll find a mountain of records on Emily and her family. According to the town's historical society, there is no known record of anyone named Emily taking her own life or dying on or near the bridge.


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[Assistant] And yet there is one account from the 1920s of a little girl who sadly fell off the bridge and died when she hit her head on one of the boulders below.


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[Assistant] Was her name Emily? We don't know. We don't even know what Emily's full name was.


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[Assistant] Still, her ghost is said to appear to those who travel over the bridge, and she is anything but friendly in these stories.


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[Assistant] Apparently she's quite angry and brandishes long nails that slash cars driving across the bridge. Scarier still is how she targets pedestrians, leaving long scratches down their backs. Even horses aren't spared from her supernatural anger issues.


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[Assistant] According to the local stories, you can also see Emily's ghostly figure hanging from the bridge's rafters, if that's the version of her story that you believe. Those who do have reported all of the classic anomalies on the bridge, including orbs in photographs, feelings of cold spots, and the malfunctioning of electronic equipment.


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[Assistant] And those who want to experience all of this for themselves are welcome to pay the bridge a visit. Just be careful though, because if you go there between midnight and 3am, you might just encounter Emily's spirit.


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[Assistant] It's a bridge without a name. Just outside of Indianapolis in the town of Avon is a bridge that has existed there for over a century. Completed in 1907, this overpass arches above South County Road 625 East and White Lit Creek.


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[Assistant] Its cement and steel frame boasts three massive archways, measuring 75 feet apiece, which are then topped with 24 smaller arches, each about seven and a half feet tall.


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[Assistant] The bridge was designed by an engineer named W.M. Dunn and was built by the Savage Construction Company to carry trains traveling to and from Indianapolis' Union Station.


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[Assistant] Just a year after its completion, the bridge was double-tracked, meaning that instead of trains sharing one track and taking turns going in opposite directions, they can now travel simultaneously without delay. Sadly though, by that time, several men had already lost their lives due to various accidents.


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[Assistant] Despite that, the bridge continued to grow in use and popularity. It's a well-known local landmark in Avon that's still in use today. It's even featured on the town's official seal. Of course, those accidents didn't go unnoticed, though, and the men who died apparently won't let anyone forget them.


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[Assistant] The first claims of spectral sightings date all the way back to November of 1908. That's when one local newspaper reported the bridge as being haunted due to several deadly incidents that occurred there. According to the Plainfield caller,


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[Assistant] Sounds of a great weight falling into the water underneath are sometimes heard.


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[Assistant] But the water remains perfectly calm, with no sign of having been disturbed. J.W. Bunk Atherton, one of our most well-known citizens, passed the bridge just after dark on election night, and he declares he saw some spirits hovering around the east end of the structure.


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[Assistant] On top of that, people have allegedly heard screaming and moaning coming from the vicinity of the bridge, and there are several local legends that explain why.


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[Assistant] One story claims that a worker who was assisting with its construction was sawing a wooden beam when he plummeted into a pool of wet concrete. The foreman refused to stop, and the man was entombed within.


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[Assistant] His colleagues could only watch as he was swallowed by the hardening liquid.


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[Assistant] In most retellings of this story, the worker was either black, Chinese, or Irish, and the foreman's racism or anti-immigrant sentiment was the reason why he made no attempt to save the man's life.


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[Assistant] Whether or not this is true, the worker's body is said to still be encased in the cement of the bridge. And on top of all of that, some people swear that if you look at the spot where he died, you can still see the outline of his face. It's also been rumored that he died with his arm poking out of the cement, and his fellow workers simply cut it off.


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[Assistant] Other possible explanations for the haunting activity at the bridge claim that four men fell to their death in the creek under the bridge during its construction. Not only have visitors reported hearing those screams, but also the thumps and splashes of their bodies hitting the water.


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[Assistant] But not all of the tragic tales surrounding the bridge involve workers. One legend claims that a woman had been hurrying across the tracks on foot while carrying her sick baby. She was on her way to a doctor, they say, when her foot got caught in the tracks, causing her to drop the child to its death.


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[Assistant] Other versions of that story also involve the mother tumbling and dying as well, or losing her battle with grief and taking her own life later on. They say that if you listen closely, you may hear her ghostly screams as she cries out for her lost child.


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[Assistant] And finally, one more popular legend holds that a boy was late coming home from his girlfriend's house on foot. As he crossed the bridge, he saw a train's light in the distance, its horns blaring at him to get out of the way.


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[Assistant] The boy instinctively jumped off the bridge but quickly realized that he was too high off the ground and that he was going to die. The scream heard at night, preceded by a train whistle, is said to be his, just before his body hits the ground.


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[Assistant] I do have to say though that skeptics are quick to point out that what ghost hunters and the morbidly curious believe to be ghostly shrieks are actually just reverberations in the hollows of the bridge from trains passing overhead.


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[Assistant] Which does make sense, but true believers don't let acoustic science get in the way of a good scare, do they? They've reported everything from glowing blue-green lights at night to visible tears on the concrete in the summer.


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[Assistant] The town, though, doesn't seem fazed by the rumors. They've even placed an informative sign nearby titled The Haunted Bridge, complete with short summaries of some of the most popular legends. It's worth a read. Just watch your step.


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[Assistant] London Bridge is falling down. There aren't a lot of songs from our childhoods that are as memorable as that, but the story behind the real bridge is one that shouldn't be forgotten.


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[Assistant] Built by a guy named Peter of Colchurch, between 1176 and 1209, the old London Bridge that we know from the nursery rhyme was constructed of stone. It had been built to replace a series of wooden bridges left behind by London's Roman founders.


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[Assistant] But in 1799, a Scottish engineer named John Rennie stepped in to design a new London Bridge, which was finally dedicated on August 1st of 1831.


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[Assistant] And the bridge held up quite well for the next 70 years or so. That is until they showed up. And by they, I'm talking about cars.


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[Assistant] To no one's surprise, the 1,000 foot long granite bridge built during the early 19th century was no match for the automobile. As people began driving on it, the structure started sinking into the Thames at a rate of about an inch every eight years. By 1924, one side of the bridge was actually four inches lower than the other.


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[Assistant] But it wasn't until the 1960s when officials decided that it was time to replace it. Of course, hauling off the old bridge and building a new one would cost a pretty penny. And all that granite would wind up in a junkyard anyway.


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[Assistant] So, one city councillor came up with another way. His name was Ivan Lukin, and his answer to their problems was simple. Sell London Bridge to the United States.


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[Assistant] Lucan landed in America in 1968 with one mission. Sell the historic landmark by any means necessary. He even held a press conference in New York where he announced, London Bridge is not just a bridge, it is the heir of 2,000 years of history.


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[Assistant] Now, to be fair, most people found the bridge to be ugly and unimpressive. But one Arizona man saw its potential. Robert P. McCulloch Sr. had purchased 26 square miles of desert on the shores of Lake Havasu back in 1963.


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[Assistant] He apparently made his fortune selling motorboats and chainsaws. But according to him, the secret to his success was actually, as he put it, booze and broads. I know. Charming, right?


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[Assistant] He was already in the process of turning Lake Havasu City into a tourist destination, aided by his buddy Cornelius Vanderbilt Wood, the man who designed Disneyland. He had drawn a number of refugees from the freezing Midwest to his sunny desert oasis, and believed that London Bridge would be just the thing to pull in even more.


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[Assistant] On April 18th of 1968, McCulloch purchased London Bridge for roughly $2.5 million, more than $21 million today. But getting the bridge from London to Lake Havasu was a miracle of modern engineering. It was dismantled, brick by brick, with workers labeling each one with its specific position.


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[Assistant] The bricks were then put into crates and loaded onto a cargo ship bound for Long Beach, California. A convoy of trucks picked up those crates and carted them all the way to Lake Havasu, where a construction crew reassembled the bridge to its former glory.


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[Assistant] 12,000 people, more than the population of Lake Havasu City at the time, attended the lavish opening ceremony.


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[Assistant] But if the legends are true, they didn't just transport a crumbling British landmark overseas. They also brought some ghosts along for the ride. In fact, the first reports of a haunting at London Bridge came from a woman who attended the opening ceremony in 1971.


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[Assistant] According to her story, she witnessed a group of four people wearing old period clothing walking nearby. She initially thought that they were part of the event, hired to provide period-specific ambiance to the festivities. But as soon as others got a look at them too, the quartet disappeared.


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[Assistant] Others have allegedly witnessed a man wearing a top hat and cape, believing the figure to be none other than the ghost of Jack the Ripper himself.


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[Assistant] But the most frequently witnessed apparition is that of a woman in a black dress who's often seen hurrying across the bridge, clutching her purse in her hands. People claim to have seen her leap off the bridge into the water at night, although she never causes a splash. Instead, she vanishes before she ever reaches the bottom.


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[Assistant] And it's a really interesting thing to ponder, isn't it? A lot of paranormal experts believe that ghosts are tied to the physical locations where they died, while others claim that ghosts can haunt any place that was important to them in life.


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[Assistant] Perhaps a few old London souls really are trapped in the granite of the famed bridge, unable to move on, despite the bridge itself doing a lot of moving. But at least they've got the sun on their backs and some sand beneath their feet. Honestly, there are worse places to hunt than Lake Havasu.


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[Assistant] Digging anywhere is rarely a simple task, even more so when that digging takes place in a city as ancient as London. For example, back in 2007, the current London Bridge was undergoing some updates, with builders excavating under it for a tourist attraction called the London Bridge Experience. And that's when they uncovered something horrifying. A mass grave.


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[Assistant] The remains found within it were dated to the 1600s, and it was believed that the area had once been used as a plague pit during the time of the Black Death. Although there were also several skulls with holes bored into them, hinting that those were executed criminals.


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[Assistant] Now, of course you know, plague pits were a common solution to the problem of mass death back in the day, when as many as one fifth of London's population succumbed to the illness. But efficiency always comes at a cost, and it's believed by some that this lack of a Christian burial led to some pretty restless spirits.


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[Assistant] According to a story from the BBC, workers who were helping out to build that exhibit reported that light bulbs mysteriously went out, at least a dozen in a single week in one instance, and tools disappeared as well, ranging from hammers and screwdrivers to an entire power drill. A number of the contractors even threatened to quit, so frightening were the experiences.


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[Assistant] And that sensation continues to this day. The London Bridge experience even boasts an award, naming it one of the UK's scariest attractions. A reputation that's helped along by the costumed tour guides who play various historical characters, spanning the full 2,000 years of the location's history.


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[Assistant] And honestly, it's easy to believe that the site is haunted. Although there is a slight complication. Those catacombs predate the current London Bridge. Which means if there are restless spirits connected to those remains, they might have been exported to America along with the old bridge.


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[Assistant] Or maybe it doesn't matter. Perhaps the bigger lesson here is also the more frightening one. That no matter what side of a bridge you're on, you're always a few paces away from a terrifying past.


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[Assistant] Bridges have always been fascinating structures, both for their purpose and as convenient metaphor. So I hope you enjoyed our tour today through a handful of history's most haunted examples. But we're not done quite yet. I've got one more spooky bridge legend to share with you. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bridges have a way of letting us be in two places at once, or at least as close as we might be able to get to that idea. And that doesn't just apply to the living. Take for example the legend of Lydia.


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[Assistant] Her story takes place in Jamestown, North Carolina, home to two important bridges. The first is a railroad bridge over East Main Street, constructed sometime around 1940 and still in use today. And the other is a nearby bridge that happens to be abandoned, mostly obscured by nests of vines and overgrowth.


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[Assistant] What's strange though is that Lydia has been seen beneath both of these bridges. Strange because Lydia's tale dates back to 1924, prior to the construction of the railroad bridge. But it's a classic vanishing hitchhiker legend, and I want to share it with you.


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[Assistant] According to most versions of her story, Lydia was either on her way home from a dance or on her way to her high school prom. In most retellings, though, it was raining that night and suddenly her car hit a rough patch and skidded into the bridge.


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[Assistant] Now, depending on who's telling you the story, sometimes Lydia is killed. Other times, it's her boyfriend who dies. Still, there are some versions where Lydia is actually walking home from the prom under the bridge, possibly because her boyfriend was drunk and she didn't want to get in the car with him.


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[Assistant] Overcome with grief for her lost partners, locals say that Lydia took her own life in the same place where he died, the bridge. Ever since, she has haunted that underpass, wearing a gown of flowing white fabric. She's even been known to flag down drivers and ask for a ride home.


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[Assistant] As the story goes in those situations, each motorist who welcomes her into their car soon discovers that she has vanished before reaching the address that she gave them. And after knocking on the door of that house, the driver will usually learn that the hitchhiking young woman matched the description of the homeowner's daughter, a daughter who was killed in a car crash many years before.


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[Assistant] But with so many variations in the legend, it's easy to believe that Lydia was simply a tall tale, drummed up by local teens to scare each other at slumber parties or summer camps. But local folklorists Amy Greer and Michael Reniger might have found the truth. Lydia, they say, was actually a 35-year-old woman named Annie L. Jackson. And the historical record seems to back this up.


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[Assistant] Annie worked in a local cigar factory in 1920 when she died in a bad car accident. It seems the driver of the vehicle in which she was a passenger lost control near the location of the two bridges. The car flipped, tossing Annie out, where she died from her injuries before she could be taken to the hospital.


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[Assistant] So, where did Lydia come from? Well, Greer and Renegar believe that mystery can be solved by her middle initial. It seems likely that the L in Annie L. Jackson gave rise to the name Lydia in the legend. But while we don't know Annie's full middle name, we do know that her maternal grandmother's name was Lucinda, and her nickname was Ludia.


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[Assistant] Solved or not, the legend of Lydia and her tragic death stands as just one more example of the power of these kinds of stories. The past might fade away as time goes on, but we can always return for a visit by crossing the bridge of folklore.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore Legends was produced by me, Aaron Manke, with writing by Harry Marks, and research by Cassandra de Alba. Don't like hearing the ads? I've got a solution for you. There is a paid version of Lore on Apple Podcasts and Patreon that is 100% ad-free.


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[Assistant] Plus, subscribers get weekly mini-episodes called Lore Bytes. It's a bargain for all that ad-free storytelling and a great way to support this show and the team behind it.


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[Assistant] Of course, Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's the book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Information about all of that and more is available over at lorepodcast.com. And you can also follow this show on threads, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.


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[Assistant] Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button.


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[Assistant] No, I don't fucking remember. Just tell me what I gotta do and can I get high? Or a little higher.


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[Assistant] I had a fucking lung full of smoke. Ricky. Ricky. Is that good guys? That's good. Fuck.


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[Assistant] Oh, fuck man, I was double fisted, look. Something not right with the double fist in here, is there?


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[Assistant] Ricky, there's an opener. No, I got a lighter, man. See, if you don't have an opener, just use your finger as a lever, or lever, depending where you're from.


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[Assistant] Hash, and then I'll try to see what this does. The what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you- What was that? Just wait and see. See where it gets it's name. That's right. It's fucking pretty good.


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[Assistant] This kinda makes me a little shake. Ricky, are you just doing that? Fucking 7.1, wow. Take another drink!


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[Assistant] The first one, Diggs, I don't know what to expect. It fucking gives you Bodes a little shake. It's nice. Hey, Bodes. Hey, Bodes, wake the fuck up. Time to get up and fucking play. Doesn't make me shake.


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[Assistant] What's up, what's on deck here? Who's running the show here, Julian? We all caught


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[Assistant] What do you want me to say? Okay, we're gonna talk about some stuff here that's gonna be really fucking important. Hopefully.


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[Assistant] Could be really fucking dumb, I don't really know, cause I don't know what we're talking about. But apparently people are gonna hear this and maybe see it.


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[Assistant] You know what, I'd like to fucking get a fucking horse. I'd be wicked, ride around like a fucking cowboy.


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[Assistant] How? How are you gonna make more money from a horse than a truck?


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[Assistant] It's probably 50 kids in this park and they'd all go for little pony rides, 5-10 bucks each.


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[Assistant] Okay, well, we'll talk about the horse later.


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[Assistant] Alright, maybe we can talk about the next fucking thing then. Sponsors? Done. What's next?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well it's not done because there's a lot of these sponsors to drink yet and I'm clear about drinking every fucking one of them. What else though?


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[Assistant] How do I officially say that I'm getting banged up?


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[Assistant] I think it's a fuckin' like a river current. It's an event that's happening on a fuckin' river.


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[Assistant] I wasn't going to, I said it's events that are happening right now or close to now. I was explaining what it was, not a river fucking current for people that might have thought it was a fucking river current. What is a fucking event happening close to now? Fuck.


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[Assistant] He's a fucking rich, powerful, pretty smart man with pretty cool hair.


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[Assistant] Well, fuck, he might be pretty good. He's good at running companies. That's what they need down there, cause they're fucking... Their monies are fucked or something, I heard.


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[Assistant] What do you guys, do you guys have a fucking fox or both? What the fuck are you just doing?


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[Assistant] I'm sure they could fuck it much more than it's fucked at the moment, could they? Although our country's more fucked, I guess.


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[Assistant] Okay, Donald Trump, some people fucking love him, some people say fuck him. Moving on.


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[Assistant] Aircraft characters, all that shit. They build that shit, they can build a big fucking fan that's big and high.


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[Assistant] Bigger and taller than the CN Tower, and it blows fucking clouds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe it moves, so it kind of blows the clouds and falls and keeps blowing them until they get to where you need them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tarp behind like a trawler. Instead of trawling for fish you catch a cloud and trawl the fucking thing down there and let it rain.


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[Assistant] That's just one idea, maybe someone will take that idea and make some sense of it and do something that might work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] See, the clouds wouldn't work there because it wouldn't rain hard enough to put the fucking things out. Well, it could, but it would have to last for days, maybe weeks. Clouds. But, same idea as the planes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They have the big tanker planes. They need bigger ones of those. Like the size of a fucking aircraft character that flies in the sky and dumps fucking water on them. Or big fire trucks, bigger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Aircraft character size firetrucks and you build special roads that they fucking just go in and say, this is done in an hour. Fuck, this is a joke.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was a fire truck that came up normal, but then it went out the top, so you filled that with water, like a wing.


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[Assistant] Anyway, you know what? Fuck. You guys invited me on here so I could get drunk and get high and I'm just throwing up fucking ideas. If you don't like them...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How long do these fucking things go? Cause, you know, there's things that have to get done here, right? They go like 30 minutes, Ricky.


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[Assistant] You fucked up your stopwatch though, bubs. Did I? Yea, it's not. Oh, she's not going. Is it 30 minutes like in total or like 30 different minute segments that you string together?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Suppose you were, oh wow, after the first one minute chunk, you're like talking about the second one minute chunk. So then there'd be that in between that. So 31 minute chunks could be, easy, 35 minutes.


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[Assistant] Do a little blast. You know what the secret is to drinking responsibly? What's that? Drink four or five drinks, then you have a nap. Then you get up, and you're good to go.


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[Assistant] Did you burn the microphone? Fuck's sake, just lost a piece of hash down there.


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[Assistant] If you called me beautiful or good looking, I wouldn't think anything of it. I'd just be like, thank you.


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[Assistant] How did we get talking about from going from tans to banging?


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[Assistant] Some characters are so well known, they need no introduction. Take, for example, Robin Hood. See, all I did was say his name, and already you've imagined a peak-capped, arrow-shooting robber stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.


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[Assistant] Perhaps you imagine the swashbuckling Aero Flynn in brilliant 1938 Technicolor.


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[Assistant] Or maybe a green garbed Carrie Elwes, prancing through Mel Brooks' classic Men in Tights. Or maybe, as my research team of primarily millennial-aged women insists, you spent your youth swooning over a handsome charming dreamboat of a Robin Hood who just also happened to be a cartoon fox. Hey, you do you.


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[Assistant] Whatever your Robin Hood of choice is, just know this. You aren't alone. Because it turns out everyone's favorite bandit has been on the prowl through our imaginations for nearly a thousand years. And some of these Robins just may have been real.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Way back in 1226, a court register from Yorkshire, England mentioned a fugitive named Robin Hood, whose land was being repossessed by the state. And then there's William Rob Hood from 1262, member of a band of outlaws. And we have a man named Robin Hood awaiting trial in 1354 in Northamptonshire.


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[Assistant] And it doesn't stop there. Historians have unearthed record after record of criminals named Robin Hood across decades and even centuries. And no, we aren't dealing with an immortal bandit, as much as I would love that. It turns out Robin Hood seems to be an alias used by various English outlaws throughout history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why, you might ask? Well, probably for the same reason that you and I love Robin Hood. Because of the stories, of course. While the first written Robin Hood legend was penned in the late 14th century, the oral tradition likely dates much earlier. Stories of the infamous noble robber, his merry men, and their home, a tract of woodland called Sherwood Forest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The thing is, Robin is far from the only thief to crouch among the shadows of an English wood, waiting for a chance to pounce. No, the British forests seem to hold as many stories as there are trees. And with so many legends over the years, there are bound to be a few ghosts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From Hamlet's dead father materializing on the stage of the Globe Theatre and the phantom stitched throughout Arthurian legends, to the visitations in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the country of England has long been overrun with ghosts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Seriously, if there were some sort of ghost census, I imagine the ghost-to-human ratio in England would be pretty high. Maybe it's the damp, foggy weather that encourages the strange and spooky as mist swirls over crumbling castles. Maybe it's the nation's violent history of battling royals and terrible plagues. Or maybe it's the land itself.


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[Assistant] Of course, no landscape is home to more frights and fairy tales than a deep, dark wood. And boy, do England's forests have some haunting stories to tell.


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[Assistant] Wander through the thickly wooded Lydford Gorge in Devon, for instance, and you might come across the beautiful White Lady waterfall. Oh, and you might spot something else, too. Or rather, someone else. A ghostly woman in white, for which the falls are named.


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[Assistant] Then there's Epping Forest in Essex, which has a haunted enough reputation that ghost hunting shows have even dragged whole camera crews through the woods there, trying to catch a glimpse of the paranormal.


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[Assistant] Epping is said to be haunted by the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin, who was executed back in 1739. Why was he executed, you might ask? Well, for murdering a man right there in Epping Forest.


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[Assistant] People claim to have been shoved and jostled by invisible hands among the epping trees. Some have seen a man on horseback, wearing a black cape and a tricorn hat. Others have heard disembodied screams.


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[Assistant] There are legends of a little ghost girl in the woods who allegedly drowned nearby, and in a real show of the old world versus the new, witnesses have seen both a headless horseman and a headless motorcyclist traveling through Epping Forest. See? Folklore does evolve.


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[Assistant] Then there's Hangman Hill, a spot in Epping where, if the stories are to be believed, a man once met the gallows. There's a road passing through the underbrush there, and they say that if you put your car in neutral, it will roll uphill toward Hangman Hill.


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[Assistant] Now, whether that's supernatural or just the classic optical illusion known as a gravity hill isn't for me to judge. But if you're ever in the area, you could decide for yourself.


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[Assistant] To the west, in Kent, is Daring Wood. Now this one lies just beside the town of Pluckley, which is known to be one of the most haunted villages in all of England. And if ghosts are contagious, well, it seems like the woods next door caught the bug.


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[Assistant] Just like in Epping, Daring has its own Highwayman Ghost, a robber who is said to have been captured and killed by angry villagers back in the 18th century, right there in the woods. Visitors today hear ghostly cries weaving through the tall oaks and pines.


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[Assistant] But if that lineup of fearful forests weren't enough, there's also Wenlock Edge, a dense wood that leads to a sharp cliff, dropping into a valley below. According to legend, a corrupt 13th century knight named Ipekin decided to turn bandit and his men used a cave there as their hideout while they terrorized the surrounding towns.


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[Assistant] But one night as the bandits slept in that cave, there was a huge storm. A bolt of lightning struck the stone entrance causing it to collapse, trapping the men inside to die.


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[Assistant] To this day, visitors who stand on Wenlock Edge and repeat, Ipakin, Ipakin, keep away with your long chin, might find themselves pushed off the ledge by the night's offended ghost.


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[Assistant] Now, before you think that all woodland ghosts are lowlifes and swindlers, there are actually some that are aristocracy. Take, for example, the ghost of Blickling Estate within the Great Wood of Norfolk. There, the spirit of a dead earl is said to wander through the trees, lamenting the loss of his daughter.


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[Assistant] But not just any Earl, this man happens to be Thomas Bolin, cursed because he failed to stop his daughter Anne's execution.


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[Assistant] If by now you're thinking that England might want to consider fencing off its woods to visitors altogether and calling it a day, bear with me here, because we aren't done yet. You see, all of these stories were simply a warm-up.


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[Assistant] Now it's time to step onto the path, say goodbye to daylight, and be swallowed up by the most haunted forest in all of England. A little place called Witchwood.


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[Assistant] It was Christmas Eve, and a family was traveling through the forest by horse-drawn carriage. As members of the Roma people, they were no strangers to long journeys through unfamiliar lands. But tonight was different. You see, this was in the days long before meteorology. And so the family had set off without knowing one crucial fact. That a snowstorm was coming. And coming fast.


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[Assistant] By the time the blizzard arrived, the carriage had forged too deep into the woods to turn around. Soon the snow was so thick that their horses could no longer move forward. The travelers were lost and trapped in the dark, freezing woods.


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[Assistant] Which is exactly when the snow foresters surrounded them.


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[Assistant] The family had heard the old legend about the ghosts called snow foresters who inhabited these woods, preying on travelers in the dead of winter. And now, it seemed the stories had become all too real. They could hear the ghosts banging and scratching on the wagon walls, trying to get in.


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[Assistant] The family cowered inside their wagon, but one little boy heard something outside that made him perk up his ears. It was mewing. Specifically the sound of a kitten. And so, to his family's horror, he opened up the door and scooped up a white little cat.


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[Assistant] As the tale goes, the cats spoke to them, as they do in forests, of course, and told the family that if they followed the sound of birds, they would be saved. Sure enough, birdsong rose through the trees, and the horses galloped forward, carriage and tow, following the sound through the woods, then out toward the ringing bells of the village church. They had finally left Witchwood Forest behind.


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[Assistant] Now, before we devolve into a cursed performance of who's on first, you know, when I say Witchwood, I'm not asking a question. I'm referring to a plot of land in the lower middle region of England called Witchwood Forest, spelled W-Y-C-H.


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[Assistant] About an hour's drive northeast of Oxford. And I know what you're thinking, but the title Witchwood actually has nothing to do with witches. It's actually referring to the witcha people, spelled H-W-I-C-C-E.


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[Assistant] But the thing is, Witchwood's human history doesn't start there. Not by a long shot. Evidence of ancient barrows show that the area has been inhabited since 3000 BC, perhaps even longer.


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[Assistant] Then in the year 43 CE, Romans invaded the woods and cut down the trees to build roads and settlements. But by 500 CE, the Romans were gone and the woods had grown up again, which is when the witcha made their mark, earning the forest the name we know it by today.


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[Assistant] After that, Witchwood Forest continued to grow. In size, yes, but in value, too. Lords and aristocrats soon parceled it off, and English kings even used the forest as a royal hunting ground. Henry I, for example, built a park on the land, where he housed his collection of exotic animals, including lions, lynxes, and leopards. Oh my.


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[Assistant] By the time Henry II was on the throne, the forest had spread over a whopping 50,000 acres. Now mind you, not all of that was wooded, but a lot of it was. As the centuries went on, the land continued to be bought and sold, and saw a ton of deforestation, primarily for shipbuilding. Today, only 1,240 acres remain.


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[Assistant] But just because the woods have shrunk doesn't mean the legends have. In fact, they're bolder than ever. And with a history as old and rich as Witchwood's, it has certainly collected its fair share of dark tales. Like the Roma story of the snow foresters. And of course, there are plenty more where that came from.


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[Assistant] In another legend, there was a young maid whose lover left her for the house cook. The maid was so distraught that she drowned herself in a lake within Witchwood Forest. Her ghost can still be seen, still in her maid's uniform, wandering to this day.


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[Assistant] Visitors have felt a ghostly hand reach out and tap their shoulder, but when they turn around, no one is there. Which is pretty much the last thing I ever want to feel while walking alone through the woods.


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[Assistant] Some have heard horses galloping through the trees, and one particularly unsettling report describes an apparition of a horse-drawn phantom carriage pulling a pair of sobbing children.


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[Assistant] Now, if there can be ghost horses, it only makes sense that other animals might have ghosts, too. In which wood forest, at least, they sure do. Like the goat, who tends to appear before vanishing into thin air. Or the howling black dog, which you probably want to avoid because, well, it's an omen of death.


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[Assistant] By the way, many of these stories were collected by legendary English folklorist Catherine Briggs, who actually lived near Witchwood Forest.


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[Assistant] She was the president of the Folklore Society in the late 60s and early 70s, and our researchers have been relying on her work for years. According to Briggs, these stories I've shared are only a few of the supernatural Witchwood tales that she documented there. She actually once wrote that there were so many ghost stories in Witchwood, she couldn't possibly report them all.


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[Assistant] That said, there's one more Witchwood story I have to tell you. It's a story of political intrigue, a story of love and betrayal, and a story of Witchwood Forest's most famous ghost of all.


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[Assistant] Amy wasn't even 18 years old, and already her wedding day was fast approaching. But she was lucky. This wasn't an arranged marriage, but a love match. And on June 5, 1550, Amy and her sweetheart Robert were married.


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[Assistant] Now, this wasn't your typical wedding. You see, Amy Robb's heart happened to be the daughter of a lord. And her betrothed was none other than Robert Dudley, son of the incredibly powerful Earl of Warwick.


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[Assistant] The couple had a lavish wedding with a star-studded guest list, including the very first Queen Elizabeth herself, as well as a young King Edward VI.


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[Assistant] And so the two began their life together. For a few years Amy and Robert were happy, but the domestic bliss didn't last long. See, it's hard to be rich and powerful in Tudor, England without a bit of drama. Especially if you're as ambitious as Robert was.


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[Assistant] When Edward VI died, Roberts, his father, and his brothers made a play to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne, who just also happened to be Amy's sister. The plan ultimately failed, though, and in January of 1554, Robert was imprisoned in the Tower of London and sentenced to death.


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[Assistant] Amy was allowed to visit him there, and she did, frequently, for ten months.


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[Assistant] Finally in October, enough power had changed hands that Robert's enemies were no longer on the throne, and so he was pardoned and released.


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[Assistant] Now you would think that a stint on death row might have made the guy think twice about climbing the social ladder, but none of that stopped Robert. In fact, he even wormed his way into the Queen's court. In 1558, Queen Elizabeth took the throne and made Robert master of the Queen's horse. But that wasn't all she made him. She also made him, well, sort of her secret boyfriend.


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[Assistant] Robert and Elizabeth were old friends, and rumors had begun to spread. Rumors that he and the unmarried queen were having an affair, and that he was even vying to wed her. Robert spent long stretches away at court, by the queen's side, all as Amy waited behind at home.


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[Assistant] On September 8th of 1560, though, everything changed. Robert was off courting the Queen as usual, but Amy still had a household to run. And on that particular day, a fair was in town.


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[Assistant] Her staff had been working hard and Amy decided they deserved a break, so she insisted that all of her servants take the day off to attend the festival. And hey, maybe she wanted a day to herself too, some quiet, without the bustle and gossip that seemed to surround her.


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[Assistant] I guess we'll never know how Amy spent her day alone, because when the household staff returned, they found her lying dead at the bottom of the stairs. Her neck had been broken.


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[Assistant] Suffice to say, scandal and rumor cannonballed through England.


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[Assistant] People were whispering that Robert had had his wife killed so that he could marry the Queen. Naturally, this decimated his reputation. So whatever shot he might have had with Elizabeth before had basically been beaten to a pulp. And the fact that Robert didn't attend Amy's funeral didn't help the rumor mill any either.


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[Assistant] In a desperate attempt to clear his good name, Robert insisted on conducting a full investigation into his wife's death. Unlikely as it may seem, her death was ultimately ruled an accident. But for Robert and his reputation, it was already too late. The damage had been done.


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[Assistant] Today, Amy Robsart's death is one of the Tudor era's greatest mysteries. Did her husband murder her right there on the winding staircase, or was it truly an accident?


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[Assistant] Some wondered whether she had been murdered by a rival suitor to the Queen, hoping to smear Robert's name to keep him from being an eligible candidate. After all, if that had been the goal, it had certainly worked.


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[Assistant] Others speculated that the young woman may have taken her own life. Perhaps her husband's alleged affair had been too much to bear.


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[Assistant] There's also the rumor that Amy had been growing ill before her death, and that she'd even found a lump in her breast. Some wonder, could that have prompted suicide?


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[Assistant] Surprisingly, most historians today agree with the original ruling that the whole thing was simply a tragic accident.


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[Assistant] If she did indeed have cancer, perhaps an aneurysm or a fainting spell due to her illness had caused her to fall. And it wouldn't have been impossible for her spine to have been impacted by the cancer too, weakening her bones and making her neck more susceptible to damage.


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[Assistant] While Robert never did marry the Queen, he did get remarried to a woman named Lettice Nolis, whom the Queen banished from court, and life as it does continued on, for Robert, for England, and even, somehow, for Amy.


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[Assistant] See, Amy may have been dead, but she wasn't fully gone. Not if the legends are to be believed. Some say her ghost haunted the staircase where she died. People became too frightened to go near it, to the point where the house was allegedly exercised by nine Oxford clergymen who attempted to drown the evil spirits in a nearby pond. It said that pond never froze again.


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[Assistant] But for all the pomp and circumstances, the exorcism apparently didn't work. Amy's ghost was seen wandering the place for another 250 years.


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[Assistant] Right about now, I imagine you're thinking, wait, what about Witchwood Forest? But don't worry, we'll get there. It's just that sometimes a good ghost story needs a bit of background. You see, Amy Robbsart not only haunted her own house, she also haunted Witchwood Forest.


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[Assistant] By this time, it was 1588, nearly 40 years after her death. Robert, though, was still alive, and on this particular afternoon, he, along with a few other nobles, had gone hunting in, you guessed it, the Witchwood Forest.


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[Assistant] Robert had been hunting all his life. It was a common hobby for wealthy men, and Witchwood was one of the most popular spots for it. He surely would have known his way around.


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[Assistant] But just like the Roma family in the Snow Forester legend, Witchwood had its own plans for Robert. The trees were thick around him, and somehow he became separated from his group. And if you've ever seen a horror movie, you know that getting separated never leads to anything good.


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[Assistant] That's when his ex-wife's spirit appeared to him. Clear as day, there was Amy, just as she had looked 40 years earlier, back when she had died at only 28 years old. And she approached Robert, who stood paralyzed, his eyes wide.


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[Assistant] But she didn't seem violent or angry. No, it seems that she only wanted to talk. Amy leaned forward then, and made Robert a promise. Something that, to her, might have seemed like a reassurance, romantic even. But to Robert, it made his blood run cold. We will be reunited, she told her husband, in only ten days' time.


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[Assistant] Sure enough on September 4th of 1588, Sir Robert Dudley died.


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[Assistant] Exactly ten days after Amy Robb Sart's prophecy.


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[Assistant] No one can say for certain what really happened in the woods that day all those years ago. Remember, there were only two witnesses. One was Robert, who is, of course, long gone now. And the other? The Silent Trees of Witchwood Forest.


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[Assistant] Woodlands cover roughly 30% of this planet. That's a lot of space for fairy tales and legends to lurk. And forests all over the world hold stories eerily similar to the English ones that we've heard today.


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[Assistant] Like one Romanian forest, for example, where ghosts and mysteries run rampant.


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[Assistant] Stick around through this brief sponsor break, and I'll gladly tell you all about it.


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[Assistant] He probably just wanted a relaxing afternoon. After all, Emil Barnea was a military technician, and day-to-day life must have been stressful. Which is why in 1968, he decided to unwind, unplug, and spend some time in nature with his girlfriend and a couple of other friends.


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[Assistant] The Hoia Baciu forest in Romania where they lived seemed like the perfect getaway. It was beautiful and serene. Or at least it should have been. But that day, something was off.


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[Assistant] Amel's girlfriend saw something strange and called him over to look. It appeared to be a silver disc. But this was no trashed hubcap or scrap metal buried in the ground. In fact, the disc wasn't on the ground at all. It was hovering in the sky.


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[Assistant] The four friends stared at the thing for two full minutes, during which time Emil lifted his camera and snapped a photo. Then, the disc disappeared.


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[Assistant] Later, a number of newspapers would go on to publish Amel's photograph. Skeptics brushed it off as a weather balloon. Yet there's never been any conclusive evidence for that explanation. Nor any other for that matter.


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[Assistant] And if you've learned anything today, you wouldn't be surprised to hear that this was far from the only weird thing that's ever happened in the Hoiabachu woods.


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[Assistant] Hoyabachu is an old-growth forest in Carpathian foothills. And by old, I mean this forest has a good 55,000 years under its belt.


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[Assistant] Imagine cramming those candles on a cake. The trees are spindly and twisting, some bent over at the waist with finger-like branches reaching out toward passersby. They look like the trees in Halloween cartoons, and weirdly there seems to be no discernible cause for the trees twisting. They just grow that way.


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[Assistant] The wildlife only adds to the energy too, because this part of Romania is bat country. That's right, take whatever image you had in your head of those dark, gnarled trees and add clouds of bats flapping through them. Perfect, right?


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[Assistant] In one popular legend, a shepherd disappeared in Hoyabachu, along with over 200 of his flock. None of their remains were ever found. In another, a five-year-old girl vanished among the trees, only to reappear five years later. If the story is to be believed, she had no memory of where she had been. Oh, and one more tiny detail. She hadn't aged a day.


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[Assistant] And sure, getting lost in the woods is a tale as old as time, but the thing about this forest is that it's actually quite small. In fact, it only covers one square mile.


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[Assistant] Not the easiest place in which to lose 200 sheep. But there are so many more stories about the place. The woods are said to be haunted by murdered peasants. There's a clearing in the center of the woods, a circle of empty ground where it's said that no vegetation can grow. Although, based on eyewitnesses, it's really just your run-of-the-mill meadow.


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[Assistant] Even so, there are rumors aplenty that the clearing is a portal to another dimension.


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[Assistant] And you'll notice that these stories all have something in common. That is, their speculative nature. There's no evidence or historical record that any of this is true.


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[Assistant] However, that doesn't necessarily mean the stories aren't based in reality. All it takes is a single seed to grow a forest, after all. And the same is true for legend. But whatever that seed was, it's been lost to time.


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[Assistant] People have been overwhelmed with anxiety, nausea, and the feeling of being watched. Some have found what they believe to be ectoplasm among the roots of the trees. Electrical devices fail and shadow creatures flit among the branches. You know, classic ghost stuff.


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[Assistant] The nearby city of Cluj-Napoca is modern and urban. To city dwellers, the woods are a place of mystery, where anything becomes possible.


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[Assistant] Some believe that it's this disconnect between nature and human industry that has made the woods such a hotbed for the strange and supernatural. It's primal, harkening back to our fear of dark, claustrophobic spaces where predators might hide behind any tree or shrub.


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[Assistant] It's an explanation that makes a lot of sense. But then again, there are more things in heaven and earth, as they say. So many things will always just be a mystery.


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


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


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


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[Assistant] Over the years, we've talked a lot about ghosts, cryptids, and demons from all around the world. And that's the thing about folklore. It's everywhere. It's one of the things that unites us and brings us together. No matter where you're from, you've heard a story or two, and that gives us a bit of common ground.


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[Assistant] But my team and I also pour a lot of ourselves into the work that we do, which usually means including a story every now and then from a place that's familiar to us. Whether that's my home state of Illinois, or other locations near and dear to my grim and mild teammates, there's a little bit of us in every story we tell.


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[Assistant] But nowhere is there a more familiar place than the towns where we spent our childhoods. We've all heard the stories. Wild rumors about the old house at the end of the block. The local creek haunted by the spirit of a boy who drowned there a hundred years ago. Or maybe it was two hundred. You get the idea.


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[Assistant] These tales stay with us because they're a part of us. And the more we share them, the longer we keep them alive for generations to come. And that's what folklore is all about. Passing down stories that give color and depth to the places that mean the most to us.


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[Assistant] Storytelling, though, is a team effort. And because each member of the Grim and Mild team was raised in a place with its own legends and myths, we decided to devote an entire episode to their favorite stories. Nine legends from the men and women who bring you this show each week.


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[Assistant] Haunted hotels, ghostly pirates, satanic trees. We've got a little bit of everything for you. So pull up a chair and get to know the team a little better and learn what keeps them up all night.


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[Assistant] Our first legend today comes from researcher Cassandra Dayalba and takes us to the small New Hampshire town where she attended high school. Durham is the home of the University of New Hampshire, built in 1866, although the town's history dates back further than that.


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[Assistant] English colonists settled in the area as early as 1623, calling it Oyster River. In fact, it wasn't renamed Durham until 1723. Funny enough, the high school is still called Oyster River High School. Thankfully though, their mascot is not an oyster.


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[Assistant] The town has changed a lot over the past 400 years, but some pieces of the original settlement remain.


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[Assistant] One of those reminders of the past is a house, which is also the oldest building in Durham and one of the oldest in the state of New Hampshire. Today, it houses the Three Chimneys Inn, a restaurant and hotel on the banks of the Oyster River. But back in the mid-1600s, it looked a lot different.


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[Assistant] It was originally built by Valentine Hill, a businessman and property owner who ran the nearby Sawmill and Gristmill. The house started out like a lot of other dwellings, with a single story and a cellar. But in 1699, Valentine's son Nathaniel added two more stories. This addition included a feature known as Indian Shudders.


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[Assistant] They were installed after an attack that had occurred five years earlier, when the French and local Native American populations from three separate groups descended upon the area. They had killed or captured 94 British colonists and destroyed over a dozen houses in the settlement. But Valentine's Home survived.


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[Assistant] Over the years, it was passed down through several more families, who all made their own modifications to it along the way.


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[Assistant] In the early 1900s, for example, one owner added gardens, a stone wall, a swimming pool, and even tennis courts with the intention of turning it into a summer estate. But eventually the house fell into disrepair and it continued to deteriorate for over 80 years until it was finally converted into the Three Chimneys Inn.


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[Assistant] Of course, with such a lengthy history, it was only a matter of time before the ghosts of the home's past caught up with its present. Quite literally. You see, after the inn opened in the late 1990s, employees and guests started noticing some strange happenings around the property.


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[Assistant] Muddy footprints began appearing on the dining room floor, even underneath the rugs. A chef once claimed to have been wished a good morning by a ghostly woman wearing period clothing as he prepared the restaurant's menu that day. Wine glasses have levitated off tables before shattering upon the floor.


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[Assistant] Employees who have slept at the inn have also reported waking up to the sounds of footsteps that belonged to no one. And one person was startled out of her sleep when she felt someone playing with her hair. When she looked around the room, there was no one there.


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[Assistant] So who was responsible for all of this? Well, if the stories are to be believed, it was the daughter of Valentine Hill, the man who built the house in 1649. Her name was Hannah, and she had been a 20-year-old mother and wife who, according to the rumors, tragically drowned in the nearby Oyster River.


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[Assistant] So the next time the silverware at the Three Chimneys Inn goes missing or the deadbolts lock on their own, don't assume there's a prankster on the loose. It's probably just Hannah stopping by for a visit.


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[Assistant] About 50 miles south of Durham, New Hampshire is Danvers, Massachusetts, better known as Salem Village, where the infamous Salem witch trials took place. But Danvers is home to more than just a 17th century witchcraft panic.


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[Assistant] In fact, Grim and Miles Jamie Vargas has one particular legend from her town that isn't about witches at all. It takes place at the Essex Agricultural School, established in 1913 in the Hawthorne area of Danvers.


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[Assistant] Hawthorne was named for John Hawthorne, one of the judges who presided over the Salem witch trials. The area carries his name because he once owned the land, including the spot where the school now stands. And for those who are curious, he also happens to be the great-great grandfather of author Nathaniel Hawthorne.


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[Assistant] Today, the facility prepares students for careers in everything, from agriculture and veterinarian professions to plant science and labor trades. But for some reason, it also has a spooky reputation among students and staff alike.


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[Assistant] For example, the animals on campus are known to get scared off without cause. Random plants will appear as though they've been stepped on when no one else is around. And there have been reports of sudden temperature changes throughout the building, with rooms turning from hot to cold without warning.


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[Assistant] Witnesses have also spotted floating light orbs on the grounds, as well as locked doors that fly open out of nowhere, windows open and shut on their own, and blinds that have been drawn suddenly spring open.


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[Assistant] Some believe these experiences could be tied to the death of a student many years ago. The exact date is unclear, but the young man at the center of the story had been on the third floor of one of the buildings, standing near a window with no one else around him, when he started screaming to be left alone.


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[Assistant] A teacher standing nearby witnessed him swinging his fists in the air as though he was fighting off an invisible attacker. Most frightening though, he seemed to levitate off the floor as if being picked up by an invisible hand.


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[Assistant] Whatever had grabbed him then tossed him out the window.


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[Assistant] As he fell, the teacher caught a glimpse of something in the window he'd been tossed from.


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[Assistant] A brief flash from a mysterious red light. And that's the story that most people claim is the root of all the unusual activity. Perhaps the student's spirit lingers there, restlessly causing havoc all over campus. Or maybe it's his invisible killer who has never left, searching for another victim.


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[Assistant] Another member of our team, Jenna Rose Nethercott, hails from Brattleboro, Vermont, a small town with some big legends. Among them is a facility once used to treat the state's most vulnerable residents. At least, that was the idea. Sadly, the reality is much darker.


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[Assistant] The Vermont Asylum for the Insane was founded in 1834 on the philosophy of moral treatment, a Quaker model that focused on humane and respectful care for all of its patients. At the time, the asylum was only one of ten private psychiatric hospitals in the entire country, and it offered its patients a whole list of amenities.


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[Assistant] For one, the campus spread out across 600 glorious acres of land and featured beautiful brick buildings, sprawling pond-filled meadows, and even a dense forest. And it was there, deep in the woods on the asylum grounds, where a tower was built.


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[Assistant] They called it the Retreat Tower. It had been constructed by the patients in 1887, thanks to a belief among the faculty that manual labor was better than medicine at stabilizing a person's mental health. So they were put to work building a 65 foot tall stone tower that loomed large over the campus.


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[Assistant] This gothic tower was made from locally sourced granite and quartz, and looked a lot like the classic castle's turret, complete with a toothed parapet placed on top. It offered stunning 365 degree views of the nearby town, and to get inside, one only needed to pass the large arched iron door. Which is exactly what the asylum's patients did.


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[Assistant] Time after time, they climbed their way to the top of Retreat Tower, but not to take in those scenic views. To them, it was a means to an end.


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[Assistant] Their end. Patients would leap from the top of the tower, falling to their deaths on the ground below. As a result, the structure was sealed off to everyone.


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[Assistant] But the asylum is still in business. It's known today as the Brattleboro Retreats, and yes, even the tower is still there. And once a year, the town opens that heavy iron door and allows visitors to ascend the rickety metal stairs to the top.


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[Assistant] All of which is done under strict supervision, of course. But those on the ground should keep their eyes toward the sky. Because legend says that visitors can still see bodies falling from the tower's peak. Their ghostly shadows plummeting to their deaths below.


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[Assistant] My teammate Harry Marks is something of an expert on his home state of New Jersey. And while this next legend isn't from his hometown, it was a frequent stop for him and his friends during their high school years. They would jump in their car and visit a number of locations highlighted in the popular independent magazine, Weird New Jersey.


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[Assistant] One of those spots was located in Bernard's Township, a 20-minute drive south of George Washington's headquarters in Morristown.


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[Assistant] Bernard's Township is made up of unincorporated communities like Basking Ridge and Liberty Corner, with large homes and quaint downtown shopping centers. It's small-town America in the middle of New Jersey.


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[Assistant] But not everything is all apple pie and baseball in Bernard's Township. There is something darker there. A sinister energy that permeates the town. And it all comes back to one solitary tree.


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[Assistant] It stands alone in the middle of a field, its gnarled branches spreading out like an eldritch circulatory system over the patchy grass. It's called the Devil's Tree, and the origin of its name varies depending on who you ask.


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[Assistant] Some say it was used by colonial farmers to hang any enslaved people who tried to escape their captors. Others claim its branches held the ropes of countless suicide victims over the years, including one noose belonging to a farmer who killed his entire family before hanging himself from the ominous tree.


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[Assistant] And there have also been rumors that the Ku Klux Klan, who once used the township as a base of operations, would lynch black residents at the Devil's Tree.


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[Assistant] And it's easy to see why those stories have stuck around for so long, as several of its large branches hang almost perpendicular to the ground.


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[Assistant] But all that death, regardless of its origins, has come at a cost. For one, the tree is now believed to be cursed. Anyone who tries to cut it down will face the Grim Reaper himself, and its trunk bears the axe marks of the dozens who have tried.


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[Assistant] Secondly, it's been said that the souls of the men and women who have died there now reside within its branches, giving the bark a disquieting warmth to whoever touches it.


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[Assistant] And of course, you're welcome to check it out for yourself. Just watch your back, because there are those who say the Devil's Tree is more than just a tool of death. It's rumored to actually be a portal to hell, and that portal is guarded by a mysterious figure in a black pickup truck.


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[Assistant] Those who visit the tree at night have returned to their cars only to see headlights in their rearview mirror. Headlights belonging to the ghostly pickup that chases them down the road until its lights vanish into the darkness.


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[Assistant] There's a college in the community of Elmira, New York that is absolutely filled with legends. And Elmira happens to be the hometown of my teammate, Ally Steed. Now, Elmira College was founded in 1855 as a women's college, although it started accepting men in the late 1960s.


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[Assistant] Thousands of students have come and gone over the last 168 years. And in that time, the institution has collected a number of stories within its hallowed halls.


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[Assistant] But two buildings have earned quite the reputation among the students, Tompkins Hall and Cowles Hall.


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[Assistant] Tompkins Hall was built in the 1920s and remains an all-female dorm to this day. Since then, students have reported hearing footsteps and doors randomly opening and closing on their own, even when the building is deserted.


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[Assistant] Although most have never felt anything malicious in Tompkins Hall, a few have claimed that the dorm is split in half spiritually, with one side being good and the other containing something darker.


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[Assistant] Residents have heard a variety of unusual yet benign sounds on the good side, but have noted the evil side is home to a demon-like shadow figure along with ghost lights that move from room to room.


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[Assistant] There have also been sightings of spirits on the fourth floor. One is said to be the ghost of a nun who comes to surprise her sister with a visit, even though her sister is long dead. The other is a former student named Mary who died in a tragic accident many years ago.


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[Assistant] She's said to appear at night, usually in mirrors or windows, although some students have also reported hearing strange voices in the bathrooms and the hallways late at night.


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[Assistant] Collins Hall, on the other hand, is plagued by only one specter, the ghost of Edith M. Stewart. Edith was from Tuxedo Park, New York, and in February of 1927, the 21-year-old senior found herself invited to a party off campus.


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[Assistant] This was the late 1920s, a time when the movements of the female students were strictly monitored and controlled. So Edith had to get permission to leave campus. She managed to do that, but she was forbidden from leaving the city.


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[Assistant] Well, being a young, independent, modern woman, she broke that rule, traveling to Ithaca about 45 minutes away.


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[Assistant] Edith behaved perfectly at the party, but the college found out about her trip anyway. When she got back to campus, the student council felt that it had to investigate. She panicked, terrified that she was going to be suspended. What would her parents think, right?


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[Assistant] As it turns out, Edith happened to work in the office of the campus physician. When they weren't looking, she stole a bottle of strychnine from a cabinet and used it to poison herself. She died on February 17th of 1927.


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[Assistant] And around that same time every year, students in Cowles Hall claim to feel cold gusts of wind accompanied by disembodied footsteps.


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[Assistant] And it's not just the students who feel they've experienced this. In fact, the facility closed down for 20 years prior to being renovated. And during that time, the only people inside were construction workers and students who had snuck in.


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[Assistant] And everyone reported hearing knocking from inside the walls, along with finding strange symbols drawn in the sawdust on the floor.


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[Assistant] Our next hometown legend takes us to Knoxville, Tennessee, home of my teammate Alex Robinson. And it was there, way back in 1817, that a new hotel opened, called appropriately The Knoxville Hotel. It was a gathering place for the city's elite, and was even a stopping point for several U.S. presidents.


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[Assistant] Now, the building changed names and owners over the years, eventually becoming the Lamar House Hotel in 1856. From that point on, it solidified itself as a part of American history. Leaders who would come to be known as Confederates would often gather there and give speeches out front in the lead-up to the Civil War.


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[Assistant] Once the conflict kicked off in earnest several years later, Confederate officers would stay at the hotel. That is, until the Union took control of the city in 1863.


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[Assistant] With the southern soldiers out of the way, the building was quickly turned into a hospital.


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[Assistant] But war was brutal, and many of the wounded died there, including Union General William Sanders.


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[Assistant] Following the end of the Civil War, the hotel continued to welcome famous visitors, actors, artists, politicians, but it declined over time. It also bounced from owner to owner, until it was finally purchased in 1908 by the Auditorium Company.


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[Assistant] After taking ownership, the company tore down a few of the hotel's wings, but renovated the ballroom to turn it into a theater. And for the next few decades, the Bijou Theater welcomed both live stage acts and films through its doors. Audiences could go see a vaudeville show one night, and then the latest moving picture the next.


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[Assistant] The hotel portion continued to operate until 1969, when it was shut down by the city, although the theater side kept running. But the years were hard on the Bijou, and it was almost lost for good. Until 2005, when it was rescued and restored.


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[Assistant] Today it hosts operas, musicals, concerts, and other stage productions. Oh, and quite a few ghosts as well.


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[Assistant] You see, it's considered the most haunted building in all of Knoxville, with multiple reports from those who have witnessed the ghostly figure of a Civil War-era soldier wandering throughout the theater. They often make special mention of the buttons on his uniform.


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[Assistant] Others have felt hands tugging at their clothing while they visit the restroom. Security guards patrolling the venue at night claim to have heard footsteps on the catwalk when no one else was in the building. And those who have found themselves alone there have said that they've heard their names being called out by some unknown voice.


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[Assistant] But one of the most blatant examples of haunted activity at the Bijoux is also the most violent. Upon occasion, handfuls of plaster, dirt, and wood have been thrown down from the rafters, often aimed at the employees below.


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[Assistant] Are the ghosts trying to send a message, or do they simply dislike the act on stage? We may never know, but on the bright side, at least they aren't throwing tomatoes.


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[Assistant] Going through those stories from home can often work a lot like a photo album or our high school yearbook. Revisiting them can help us relive emotions that we might have once forgotten. Except in the case of Hometown Legends, those emotions are almost always fear.


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[Assistant] But not all the stories we love are rooted in tragedy and pain. One at least is a favorite for a different kind of emotion. Wonder.


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[Assistant] My teammate Sam Alberti grew up in Minnesota's Twin Cities, but one state legend made a 150 mile journey to him when he was a boy, and it has stuck with him ever since.


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[Assistant] In 1898, in the town of Kensington, Minnesota, a block of stone was discovered, tangled in the roots of a tree, on a plot of land owned by a man named Olaf Omen.


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[Assistant] Olaf was a Swedish immigrant who'd been removing stumps and trees from his field to prepare it for plowing when he stumbled upon the stone. But this was no ordinary rock.


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[Assistant] It measured about 30 inches long by 16 inches wide and 6 inches thick, and it weighed about 200 pounds. But what struck Olaf the most about the stone was the ancient Germanic script, or runes that had been chiseled into it.


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[Assistant] Why? Because the inscription was eventually translated, and it told the story of eight Swedes and 22 Norwegians who had traveled from Vinland through the west. They'd set up camp about a day's journey from the stone. Later, after a handful of them left camp to go fishing, they returned to find ten of their men dead, and covered in blood.


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[Assistant] Let that date sink in for a bit. If the inscription was real, that meant that there were Scandinavian explorers who had made their way far, far inland more than a hundred years before Columbus arrived in the Americas, and that they'd met their end at the hands of some unknown enemy.


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[Assistant] Well, as you might imagine, Olaf's Stone became the talk of the town. Some believed it was the real deal, a genuine artifact of the Viking Age, but there were also skeptics who thought it was little more than a hoax.


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[Assistant] A number of scholars and experts, including archaeologists, linguists, and historians, reviewed the inscription, and they deemed it to be a fake. But in 1907, a Norwegian-American journalist named Hjalmar Holand acquired the stone. He argued for its authenticity and remained its most ardent defender for decades.


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[Assistant] Over the years, he developed the theory that Vikings had conducted an extensive inland expedition in North America via Greenland and Hudson Bay. These mooring stones were used to mark their route. Then in 1928, he sold the stone to some businessmen in Alexandria, Minnesota for $2,000. But despite Holland's protests and the affirmative,


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[Assistant] Countless experts who have reviewed the stone have rejected it as a forgery.


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[Assistant] They've argued that the language of the runic inscription is much closer to modern Swedish than anything that would have been used in the 14th century. On top of that, tests of the stone and the soil it was found buried in determined that it had been buried for only 25 years prior to its discovery.


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[Assistant] Omen may have found it, but he probably wasn't the one who had buried it.


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[Assistant] We all have favorite legends, often rooted in the places we were born and raised. From coastal tales to inland treasures, these stories are a bit of home that we carry with us everywhere we go. Sharing them is simply the proper thing to do. So I hope you enjoyed this journey.


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[Assistant] But I'm not done quite yet. I've saved one last tale to delight you with. And if you stick around through this brief sponsor break, I'll tell you all about it.


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[Assistant] The Massachusetts town of Ipswich is a lovely coastal community that resides in the northeast corner of the state. But Ipswich is known for more than its ocean views and peaceful setting. It's also the hometown of my teammate Robin Minniter. And a man named Harry Main.


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[Assistant] According to the stories, Harry Maine arrived in Ipswich in 1671 with a companion named Andrew Diamond. They had come from the Isle of Shoals, just off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire. Both were fishermen, and they wasted no time getting to work.


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[Assistant] Now, Diamond got rich in the shipping business, along with another business partner named Francis Wainwright. But Harry? Well, he went a different route. He ended up taking on several less legitimate jobs, working as a smuggler, a pirate, and something called a moon cusser.


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[Assistant] Moon cussers were particularly reviled, even by pirates. They would set up decoy lights along the coasts and lure ships toward them at night. The vessels would then wreck along the sandbars and breakers, and then Harry and his men would climb aboard, murder the crew, and steal whatever they could.


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[Assistant] Harry Maine and his fellow Wreckers were eventually caught and tried for their crimes. Harry received one of the worst punishments of all, too. He was chained to the Ipswich Bar where he had carried out his awful misdeeds and sentenced to shovel sand until he either dropped dead or drowned.


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[Assistant] When the weather got stormy and kicked up the waves, he would yell and scream, causing the people in town to say things like, Old Harry's growling again, or the devil is raising Old Harry.


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[Assistant] After his death, in a twist of bitter irony, his home was ransacked and plundered for loot, specifically the valuables that he'd stolen from all the ships he'd wrecked. The trouble was, no one found anything. It seems whatever treasure he may have had was long gone.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, a local man started having dreams. Dreams of a specific place in town where someone had buried large amounts of money on a hill. And this man recognized the place instantly. So, after his third night of dreaming about it, he decided to check it out for himself.


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[Assistant] He snuck out around midnight carrying his Bible, a lantern, and a spade. With one thing on his mind, finding that hill. And find it he did.


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[Assistant] Right away he started digging. It took some time, but his shovel eventually clanged against something hard beneath the dirt.


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[Assistant] He dug a little more and uncovered a large flat stone with an iron bar next to it. Grateful for an extra tool, the man picked up the bar and began prying the stone from its position when he noticed something strange. He looked up to see an army of black cats surrounding him, their eyes glowing in the darkness.


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[Assistant] With a swing of the iron bar, he dispersed the cats. But his problems only grew worse. Icy water began to fill the hole where he was standing.


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[Assistant] Not wanting to drown or get stuck, the man climbed out and let the water consume the stone. But he didn't leave empty handed. He was still holding that bar, so he took it home and turned it into a latch for one of his doors.


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[Assistant] The man wasn't nervous, but most of you, with all the folklore you've heard over the years, probably see what's coming. By bringing that artifact into his home, the man also allowed something else inside. The ghost of Harry Mane. And it haunted that dwelling for years.


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[Assistant] According to local legend, it took a visit from every minister in town to finally cleanse the house of that evil spirit, which soon found a new place to live on Plum Island as it searched for its missing body. Soon enough, locals refused to go out during storms because they felt the ghost of Harry Mane was still out there, digging in the sand to find his remains.


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


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[Assistant] Don't like the ads? I've got a solution. There's a paid version of Lore on Apple Podcasts and Patreon that's 100% ad-free. Plus subscribers get weekly mini episodes called Lore Bites. It's a bargain for all that ad-free storytelling and a great way to support this show and the team behind it.


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[Assistant] And you can also follow this show on YouTube, threads, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and 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] Thomas Harvey wanted to give his mother's home a bit of a fresh cleaning. She had lived in the house for 40 years, but little had changed in the decades leading up to 1960.


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[Assistant] If you'd asked around in the neighborhood there in the Welsh town of Rhyl, every single person would have said that Sarah Harvey deserved that gift. She was kind and quiet. If not, unremarkable. And she'd been living alone ever since her husband passed away in 1938. Well, that's not entirely true.


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[Assistant] For a handful of years, beginning in 1940, Sarah Harvey played host to a lodger. Mrs. Knight was an older woman who had recently separated from her husband. She wasn't well, and so Sarah had looked after her while she stayed there. But when World War II ended, Mrs. Knight moved out of town.


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[Assistant] 15 years is a long time for someone to live alone, which is why her son Thomas wanted to freshen up the house before she returned home from a stay in the hospital.


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[Assistant] On May 5th of 1960, he was standing on the landing of his mother's stairs, looking at a large storage cupboard. Maybe he thought it contained cleaning supplies, or perhaps boxes of old decorations. I have no clue, really. Whatever the reason was though, he reached up and opened it wide. And found... a body.


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[Assistant] Insects had eaten away most of the face and hair and there was a thick layer of dust on the skin. But that didn't stop the police from identifying her. It was Mrs. Knight. Harvey had apparently strangled the woman in 1940 and then continued to collect her pension illegally.


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[Assistant] I know we've talked a bit about Edinburgh before, but indulge me for a moment. Today we know it as the beautiful ancient capital of Scotland, but that wasn't always the case. People have lived in the area for over 10,000 years, but it wasn't until the end of the 7th century when they started to gather into anything resembling a community.


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[Assistant] A Celtic fortress was built there in 638, and that's where the city as we know it today, began.


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[Assistant] Sure, it had the usual outline village, but it wasn't until Scottish King David I established an official royal settlement there in the 12th century that things really started to take off. Within two centuries, riders across Europe began to refer to the city as the capital of Scotland, but that expansion came with some growing pains.


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[Assistant] Up until the end of the 16th century, every bit of the city was still wrapped up in the tender embrace of the defensive walls that surrounded the community. So rather than growing outward, buildings were starting to climb higher. Some of them even reached a height of 11 stories. Not too bad for the pre-skyscraper era.


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[Assistant] But all those people living in such confined space was creating a problem. For a long time, Edinburgh was known as one of the most filthy and overpopulated urban centers in all of Europe. Those high-rise tenement buildings were packed with people, and beneath them were countless vaults, like an ancient hybrid between a dungeon and a basement.


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[Assistant] And as the city attracted more and more newcomers, they tended to find themselves down there, in the shadows. But thankfully that was all about to change.


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[Assistant] In the 1760s, the city reinvented itself. It's a long story, involving a competition to find the best architect, so I won't dig into the finer points. But the end result is going to be a brand new part of the city, referred to as Newtown, situated north of the older portion, logically known as Oldtown.


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[Assistant] The planning committee had a clean slate, so a grid of streets was laid out north of Norlock. As construction went on over the coming years, the lock, which had originally just been a dumping site for sewage, was filled in with earth, and today it's known as the mound.


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[Assistant] All of those gorgeous buildings, the National Gallery, the General Assembly Hall, the museum, all of it, you see, was built on the human waste of Old Town.


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[Assistant] And Newtown was gorgeous, there's no doubt about it. It was modern and beautiful and perfectly matched to the enlightened minds that were flocking to the city.


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[Assistant] Before long, Edinburgh was known as the Athens of the North, and all of that knowledge and advancement, along with the available space for new construction, attracted a wave of elite and wealthy landowners.


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[Assistant] This new setting created a demand for luxury products. Those fancy Georgian townhouses practically begged for beautiful new custom furniture, right? And those wide clean streets? Well, they were the perfect place to drive your brand new carriage on. A whole new industry, from ironwork to cabinetry, began to blossom.


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[Assistant] Newtown, whether it was intentional or not, quickly became rich town. And because it was situated at a higher elevation than the rest of the city, a very real physical separation was formed between the wealthy and the poor.


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[Assistant] If you lived on the southern side of Newtown, you could quite literally step outside and look down on the poor.


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[Assistant] But no city can engineer away all of its social problems. As the 18th century gave way to the 19th, Old Town continued to suffer in the shadow of New Town.


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[Assistant] Between 1750 and 1850, the population of the city tripled from 60,000 to nearly 180,000. Most of those newcomers settled in the poor areas of the city, and with them came increasing waves of illnesses like cholera, rampant crime, and deep poverty.


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[Assistant] In a very real sense, Edinburgh had become a city with a split personality. To the south, there was darkness and danger and filth. The north, in contrast, represented hope and a bright future.


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[Assistant] But few people ever saw both sides of the city. If you were born in the slums of Old Town, you were more than likely going to live there, work there, and die there.


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[Assistant] The wealthy to the north put themselves into a similar situation. They were isolated from the lower class. They left their problems behind in a way. Newtown was a place of wealth and progress and knowledge. The elites who lived there were, at least in their own eyes, better because of that. But Edinburgh wasn't unique in its dual nature.


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[Assistant] William's first real crime could be viewed as an act of mercy. If you squint really hard and ignore all the illegal bits, I suppose. He had a friend, you see, and that friend had a problem that needed solved. So the man asked William for help.


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[Assistant] The friend, a Mr. Hay who worked as a stabler in grass market down in Old Town, was mourning the loss of his son.


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[Assistant] The boy was barely a teenager, but he had been charged with a crime, and it looked as if all the evidence pointed to his guilt. As a result, the boy was being set to hang in just a few days. So on the eve of the execution, both men approached the old Tollbooth building, sort of a mixture of a jail and a courthouse, and made their way to the jailkeeper.