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[Assistant] But his reputation as a ghost seer was helped along by two other events as well. First, during an evening of heavy drinking at a local establishment, Joseph was thrown out by another young man. The two fought, and Joseph lost. But apparently, as he was leaving, he shouted that the other man would be in the ground before the year was over. And it actually came true.


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[Assistant] The second event happened when Joseph predicted that someone who lived on his father's street would drown, a highly specific claim for sure. But on Easter Sunday, that's exactly what happened. When a young bricklayers apprentice who lived on his father's street went to the river after work to wash off, slipped and hit his head on a rock and drowned as a result.


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[Assistant] Joseph knew what made people tick in his town. He understood their hopes and dreams, and he understood their deepest fears. Whether it was through his official work as part of the church porch watch, or just through careful observation of the people around him, he couldn't help but notice an opportunity.


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[Assistant] Yes, it probably would have surprised a lot of people to see the barghast peel off its face, revealing Joseph underneath. But to him, it just made sense. People were gullible by nature, and their dependence on folklore only amplified that. So rather than work the dangerous job of flax dressing, he pivoted to something more fun, more lucrative, and much more effective.


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[Assistant] And for a while, it worked as planned. Over time, he robbed a number of farms in the area, building up a good old-fashioned community panic as he went.


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[Assistant] But eventually, some people became a bit more curious and started to follow the clues. Like Scooby and the gang, they followed them back to the source. And soon enough, a warrant had been issued for his arrest.


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[Assistant] With his con exposed, Joseph's hand was forced. Like the bar-gast he had been impersonating, he vanished into the night, leaving town and family behind.


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[Assistant] But while his criminal activity might have ended in one place, it would appear in another soon enough. Because for Joseph Brown, one thing was clear. There would always be more cons to pull.


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[Assistant] Brown didn't leave town alone, though. Right beside him was a younger man named Joseph Hesslegrave, sort of an assistant and apprentice. And yes, I know that they're both named Joseph, and that's going to be confusing, so I'll probably just refer to them both by their last names from here on out, if that's okay with you.


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[Assistant] Hesselgrave couldn't have been much older than 17 or 18 at the time. His childhood is a mystery to us as well, but clearly he preferred a life of crime to the typical path most people followed. And together, he and Brown made quite a team.


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[Assistant] As I mentioned before, Brown wasn't the most attractive guy in town. It's clear from some contemporary newspaper accounts that a lot of people assumed he was mentally disabled in some way. They referred to him as dumb, but naturally that public perception came with its own folklore.


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[Assistant] It was a common belief that those with mental disabilities were closer to God and that the spirit world often spoke through them. Maybe it had something to do with Jesus and his message about childlike faith, but what's clear is that most people looked at Joseph Brown's face and assumed that he wasn't too bright, which, as we know now, was a mistake.


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[Assistant] The two men set up their newest con in the town of Hensal, where they were far enough away from home to not be recognized. But rather than dust off that bar-gassed costume, they tried their hand at a new scheme.


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[Assistant] Fortune telling. And Brown's appearance helped tremendously with that. People would pay to hear his predictions, which he delivered through a performance designed to reinforce their assumptions about his intelligence. And then Hesselgrave would pretend to interpret for him.


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[Assistant] It was a risky game, thanks in part to the wide assortment of social views on fortune telling.


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[Assistant] It was, at the basic level, a form of magic, which made it both illegal and immoral. But it was also not taken very seriously by a lot of people. In fact, it was common for young unmarried women to play husband divination games, especially around Halloween and Christmas.


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[Assistant] Honestly, the way fortune telling was perceived often came down to social status. If you were rich, it was seen as a simple distraction, entertainment, and nothing more. But if you were poor, all the fortune telling options available, whether it was crystal balls, cards, or bare bones palmistry, tended to be frauds, and therefore illegal.


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[Assistant] Which is probably why Brown and Hesslegrave were looking for a bigger, safer con to pull off. And they found it right where they lived.


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[Assistant] You see, after arriving in Hensel, they paid for lodging at the home of two old spinsters by the name of Fletcher. Having no husbands or children, these ladies made money by renting out a room in their home, providing a place to sleep and meals to eat.


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[Assistant] It was profitable, too. According to the records, the Fletcher sisters had managed to stash away at least £20, worth roughly $2,000 today, which they kept in a strongbox in the house. So it wasn't long before Brown and Hesslegrave found out about it and started plotting ways to steal it.


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[Assistant] After briefly toying with the idea of marrying one of the Fletcher sisters, Brown settled on a plan with less long-term commitment required.


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[Assistant] On October 20th of 1804, he paid a visit to a druggist in a neighboring town, introduced himself as Joseph Fletcher, and then spun a fanciful tale about how his father was suffering incredible pain and needed laudanum to sleep.


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[Assistant] The Druggist, a man named Mr. Perkins, felt great sympathy and sold him about an ounce of the stuff. A reddish-brown opium powder that contains morphine and codeine, among other things. Perkins didn't know the truth about why Brown needed the drug or what he had planned for it. He was just helping a troubled stranger out of a jam.


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[Assistant] The following night, October 21st, Brown and Hesslegrave sat down to dinner with the Fletcher sisters, ready to put the plan in motion. But just as things began, their neighbor, Robert Challenger, showed up unannounced, and one of the women asked him to join them for the meal.


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[Assistant] Challenger recalled watching Brown produce a quart of ale, and then pour some of it into a pint glass before mixing in a brown powder. Brown sugar to help the taste, he was told, and then the cup was passed around. First to Hesselgrave, who pretended to sip from it, and then to the Fletcher sisters. Elizabeth Fletcher was said to have consumed the most of it.


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[Assistant] Around 9pm that night, both men retired to bed, and Challenger went home. In the middle of the night though, when the house was quiet, the two lodgers came out of their room, found Elizabeth asleep, and slipped the key to the strongbox out of her pocket. After getting what they came for, they grabbed their bags, and vanished into the night.


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[Assistant] Challenger must have slept in a bit later than his neighbors. When he woke up the following morning, someone else visited and told him that Elizabeth Fletcher was dying. He quickly made himself presentable and then rushed over to see her, only to discover she was already dead.


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[Assistant] What happened next was a miracle of coincidence. News of the woman's murder spread far and wide, including to the druggist shop operated by Mr. Perkins. And when he heard the names Elizabeth Fletcher and Joseph Brown, a lightbulb went on in his head. After telling the authorities that he knew exactly who had done the deed, a warrant was issued. Amazingly, Brown and Hesslegrave were tracked down.


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[Assistant] They were hiding out in their old hometown, pretending like nothing had ever happened.


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[Assistant] In short order, they were arrested, put in chains and transported to the local magistrate for trial.


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[Assistant] Owing to the ignorance or stupidity of the coroner, proper proofs were not procured at the time to fix the death upon the parties, so they were dismissed.


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[Assistant] In other words, Brown and Hesslegrave were free. The authorities botched the investigation and with no case, there was no trial. So both men returned home.


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[Assistant] Now, they've had a brush with the law, literally getting arrested for a murder they definitely committed and somehow walked away without consequences. So it would be safe to assume that they had been scared straight, so to speak. And yet the historical record only shows just how much more bold they became.


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[Assistant] After returning to Cawood, they started in on some petty, mundane crimes. In January of 1805, they stole some fine fabric, linen and black silk, from a woman in town, went elsewhere to sell it, and then came home with their pockets full of coins.


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[Assistant] In August of that year, they even pulled a good old fashioned mugging, hiding in the bushes alongside the high road for a traveler to pass by.


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[Assistant] But Joseph Brown loved using beliefs and traditions of a community to his own advantage. That's where he shined.


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[Assistant] And as November approached, he realized that there was an opportunity on its way. November 5th.


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[Assistant] You see, back in 1605, a man named Guy Fawkes had tried to assassinate King James I by blowing up the House of Lords in a scheme remembered as the Gunpowder Plot. Ever since, the country had celebrated that date with fireworks and church bells.


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[Assistant] But this one was going to be much bigger than most, because it was the bicentennial anniversary, and people love nice round numbers.


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[Assistant] So around 8pm that night, as the entire countryside rocked and rang from the celebration noises, Brown and Hesslegrave jumped out of another hedge outside of town. This time they had firearms with them, knowing that they would sound like fireworks to anyone else who heard them.


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[Assistant] And when they were done, they left their victim, George Calvert, in a ditch wounded and bloody.


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[Assistant] It would be hours before Calvert was discovered, and by then it was clear his injuries were grave. Despite being transported to the general infirmary in the nearby city of York, physicians weren't able to save him. But he certainly put up a fight. He wouldn't pass away until December 14th, and when that happened, the crime transformed from robbery to murder.


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[Assistant] I'd like to tell you that this was the one that ended it for them. That the authorities tracked them down and arrested them. And indeed in December of that year both men were taken into custody. But sadly this new trial was also thrown out for the very same reason as the first. A defect in the evidence against them.


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[Assistant] For a pair of intelligent con artists, they often got tangled up in some of the dumbest things. And in March of 1806, that was an assortment of cured meats.


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[Assistant] It seems that they had convinced a man named Mr. Render to let them into the house where he worked as a servant, the home of John and Elizabeth Bolton, and walk away with a large quantity of ham and bacon.


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[Assistant] When they were spotted selling the food a few days later to a local pub owner, things quickly fell apart. Both men were arrested, as was the servant Mr. Render, and they were taken off to York for their trial. A trial, by the way, that would have no issue with flawed evidence this time.


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[Assistant] I won't go into too much detail about that trial. They were caught red-handed, and they knew it. Someone had actually seen them in the field outside the Bolton's house just after the theft, dividing up their stolen goods. They even saw bacon sitting on the grass. But that doesn't mean that Joseph Brown was going down without a fight.


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[Assistant] First he tried to blame it all on Mr. Render. The man had stolen the food himself, Brown claimed, and was only trying to sell it to them in the field. That's what the witness had seen that night. And to help earn himself some credibility, Brown had his own sister Mary take the stand and vouch for his character, as well as the woman who rented him a room in town. But none of it worked.


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[Assistant] After slipping through the net of justice for the murders of Elizabeth Fletcher and George Kelvert, it would be the theft of bacon that would end their journey.


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[Assistant] There always seems to be one in the crowd. That individual who believes they are smarter than the system, than the other people around them. Most of the time that just makes them difficult people to live with, but every now and then that overconfidence drives them to something darker.


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[Assistant] History is filled with stories of con artists, and the tale of Joseph Brown is just one of many. But the events of his life do a really good job of illustrating the true meaning behind the term.


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[Assistant] Khan artists build fraud through trust. They know people so well, so intuitively, that they're able to trick people into doing whatever they want. All it takes is a little confidence.


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[Assistant] Those are the sorts of crimes that got Joseph Brown to where he was in the summer of 1806. Despite his intuition and intelligence, he found himself facing the death penalty with no hope of escape. But people like Brown rarely give up that easily.


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[Assistant] After appealing to a higher ranking official, both men had a lucky break. Rather than being sentenced to death for the theft of food, they were to be transported to Botany Bay in Australia, half a world away. There, they would live out the rest of their days with no rights, no way home, and no second chance.


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[Assistant] It was a decision that put Joseph Brown on a ship at the docks in Portsmouth. But before starting the long and dangerous journey to Australia, it stopped at the Isle of Wight where Brown appealed to a magistrate there.


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[Assistant] Remember, he was a con artist, so a fresh setting meant new people to manipulate. And after confessing to all of his past crimes, he got what he was hoping for.


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[Assistant] This time, thanks to his own confession, he was on trial not just for the theft of food, but also for all his previous murders. Maybe he assumed that he would be able to talk his way out of it. Perhaps he hoped that the defects in the evidence that had thrown out those cases before would somehow still be there.


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[Assistant] Brown rolled the dice, but came up empty. Instead that sentence of lifelong service in a penal colony halfway around the world was replaced with immediate execution. He was escorted from the packed courtroom to the square outside, where the gallows were set up for all to see.


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[Assistant] And there, in front of a crowd of over five thousand people, he was hanged until he was dead, just as the sentence demanded.


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[Assistant] True to the times, his body wasn't carted off for burial. As always, there were too many medical students and not enough cadavers to learn on. So his body was delivered to them.


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[Assistant] Joseph Brown spent his life studying other people in order to manipulate them for his own benefit. But in the end, the table was turned. It was time for others to learn a little something about him.


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[Assistant] Crime and folklore aren't the most obvious bedfellows. Honestly, when we discuss things like fortune telling or premonition, we tend to think of them in safe, harmless settings. But clearly, Joseph Brown saw an opportunity to use belief and tradition to his own advantage. And he wasn't alone.


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[Assistant] I have one more story to tell you that mixes folklore and fraud, and you won't believe how it ends. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] Mary wasn't a witch, but a lot of people assumed she was. In reality, she was a thief, and had always been one. She was just the sort of thief who used tradition and folklore to her advantage.


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[Assistant] She was born in 1768 to a family of farmers who lived in the village of Asenby, about 20 miles from the city of York. It wasn't an easy childhood and they struggled to get by most years. So as soon as she was old enough to work for a living, she was hired out as a servant girl in the nearby town of Thursk.


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[Assistant] Sadly, we don't know how old she was when that happened, but it couldn't have been easy. Far from home, working for someone else's family, all while still in her childhood. So she started plotting from an early age how she was going to improve her station. And for Mary, that started with theft.


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[Assistant] In fact it was an early theft that cost her that job as a servant girl. But rather than return home, it seems that she left for greener pastures, making her way south to the city of Leeds.


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[Assistant] There she began to build a reputation for herself as a con artist and a cut purse. But mixed in among all that was something else. Some people believed that she had supernatural powers.


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[Assistant] So here we have Mary, barely a teenager, working over strangers in the big city with tricks that had them convinced that she was some kind of witch. As she got older and wiser, she pivoted to other cons, like potions for warding off evil spirits and medicinal tonics. And people trusted her with this for years.


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[Assistant] Her breakout moment though, happened later in life, when she was about 38 years old. That was when she came into the possession of a magic chicken.


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[Assistant] Yes, you heard that right. She called it the Prophet Hen of Leeds, and it had the most unusual talent. It seems that the eggs that were laid by this hen would have messages written on them. Things such as, Christ is coming. And the people of Leeds went crazy for it.


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[Assistant] It turns out it was just another one of her cons. She was actually taking freshly laid eggs, writing the messages herself, and then placing those eggs back inside the hen.


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[Assistant] And yes, it was a ridiculous stunt to pull. There's no question about that. But I think it's also ridiculous that people actually fell for it and believed it was real. Forgive me for saying it, but I guess they fell for the yoke.


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[Assistant] That same year, she picked up a new client. William and Rebecca Perrigo were a local couple who needed help, and they had become rather desperate in their search for it. You see, they were absolutely convinced that Rebecca had been cursed. That was the only way they could explain the chest pains she was having. And she wasn't getting better.


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[Assistant] And Mary was there to help. She gave them both a special food that was meant to help fight off the evil spell Rebecca was under. But Mary also laced that food with a small amount of poison. Perhaps to keep the woman sick and in need of her services. But it backfired and within just a few months, Rebecca was dead.


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[Assistant] Now, given the situation, we would expect William to lash out, have her arrested, or simply walk away and wash his hands of it all. But that's not what he did.


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[Assistant] No, for the next two years, William continued to be a paying customer, returning time and again to Mary for various charms and potions.


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[Assistant] For William, it was probably a security blanket and a living connection to his dead wife.


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[Assistant] For Mary, the relationship was dependable income.


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[Assistant] But all of that came to an end when Williams somehow discovered that one of the charms he had purchased was a total fabrication.


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[Assistant] It was the prophet hen of Leeds all over again, without the eggs this time, and William was enraged. He went to the local authorities and told them what he suspected and then worked with them to lure Mary to a meeting where they could arrest her.


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[Assistant] Once in custody, all it really took was a quick search of her home to uncover evidence of a number of crimes. Including the murder of William's wife, Rebecca. Mary professed her innocence, of course. Even from inside a prison cell, she cried out that she had never intended to poison the woman. Medicine was tricky, after all. But they didn't buy it.


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[Assistant] After all the evidence had been gathered and the case against her was established, Mary was dragged into the courtroom in York for her trial. Hers was one of a number of cases being tried that day, but between the actual proceedings and the jury's deliberation, it became an 11-hour ordeal.


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[Assistant] When it was over though, the answer was final. She was guilty of fraud and murder and was sentenced to immediate execution. After being taken outside, Mary Bateman was hanged in front of a crowd of over 5,000 onlookers, right alongside two other criminals who met their fate at the same moment.


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[Assistant] After it was over, her body was left hanging for days while visitors paid a few coins to view it. When her remains were finally cut down, they were taken to a local medical museum, where strips of her skin were tanned into leather and sold as charms.


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[Assistant] I mentioned a moment ago that the courthouse had other trials going on the same day as Mary's, and that she even hanged beside two of them later that day.


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[Assistant] He too had been a con artist, one who had built a short but popular career by using his community's beliefs against them, leading to profit,


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


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


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


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[Assistant] It was older than the ancient Roman Empire by at least five centuries. The hilltop fortress near the Armenian town of Ghegorath was discovered in 2015 by a pair of American archaeologists. But it was more than a series of walls and cellar holes.


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[Assistant] This ruined fortress was home to a number of buildings, and each one served a specific purpose. There was a workshop for crafting stone tools, another for working with metal, and others that seemed to serve as official quarters with idols and royal seals found in the ground. There was even a small mill for grinding flour. But that wasn't the key feature of the fortress.


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[Assistant] No, what set it apart and drew the attention of historians was the presence of three unique shrines. One seemed to have all the telltale signs of osteomancy, the practice of using animal bones to seek the will of the gods. Another hinted at lithomancy, the same sort of practice, only using stones instead of bones.


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[Assistant] They were divination shrines, places where the inhabitants of the fortress, or perhaps just the rulers of the community there, might seek answers from the divine in order to make informed decisions about their future. And they are an early example of a practice that can be found in just about every ancient culture around the world.


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[Assistant] When our ancestors needed answers and didn't know where to turn, they looked to the realms beyond our own.


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[Assistant] They developed traditions and techniques that they believed would allow them to peer into the darkness and set eyes on the best path forward. Whether it was learning if the crops would be plentiful in the coming season or why one of their elders suddenly passed away, seeking answers has always been a part of the human experience.


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[Assistant] But it hasn't always been that simple. And oftentimes a lot more was at stake than when and where to plant our grain. Sometimes those glimpses into the mind of the divine has led to violence and suffering and pain. And for thousands of years we've accepted that as the price we must pay for answers.


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[Assistant] Everyone wants answers. It's part of who we are as human beings. We seek the reasons to explain our past, the truth to frame our present, and the knowledge to predict our future. And while that's a frustratingly difficult hunger to satisfy, it hasn't stopped us from trying.


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[Assistant] As I said before, nearly every ancient culture that we know of has explored some form of divination. They've turned to the gods or to some supernatural force in search of guidance and warnings. It was used to gain the advantage in battle or to navigate the tricky waters of political life in a cutthroat world.


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[Assistant] The word itself, divination, comes from the Latin divinare, which means exactly what you might expect to foretell the future.


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[Assistant] But it comes from an older Greek word, manteke, which means madness or insanity, but also inspiration. It's where we get words like manic or mania, and we can understand why.


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[Assistant] Believing that someone can seek guidance about the future from the divine seems, on many levels at least, like a sign of madness.


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[Assistant] We can find writings about it all the way back to the world of the ancient Greeks. The philosopher Plato wrote a dialogue called Phaedrus back in 370 BC in which he talks about the connection between madness and divination. Some even called madness a divine ecstasy while others have spoken of being touched by the gods. Neither way, the message is clear.


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[Assistant] Romans picked up on those traditions, but they refined them slightly.


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[Assistant] According to cultural anthropologist Barbara Tedlock, it was less about madness for the Romans and more about a system. It was a diagnostic tool that had rules and a process, like some sort of recipe that could be repeated perfectly over and over again.


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[Assistant] And those ideas were probably the biggest influence on how European cultures of the last thousand years approached divination.


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[Assistant] But the practice shows up in so many other places as well. The indigenous people of North America, for example, wove together pieces of their mythology with powerful visual elements. As a result, dreams played a major role in their version of divination, often times focusing on medicinal cures.


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[Assistant] We have references to the practice and the writings of the ancient Near Eastern cultures too, such as the Sumerians and the Babylonians, while references also appear in Central and South American cultures.


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[Assistant] In fact, the name of the Aztec god, Tezcatlipoca, literally translates into smoking mirror, a reference to the use of polished obsidian as a scrying device.


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[Assistant] Which is interesting, because the Englishman John Dee, who served as an advisor to Queen Elizabeth I in the second half of the 16th century, dabbled in divination throughout much of his life.


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[Assistant] And one of his key tools in that process, at least if the rumors about him are true, was a small round hand mirror crafted of black obsidian. Whether or not it was actually used by him, it's a tantalizing connection to the Aztec traditions.


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[Assistant] But Europe didn't need to borrow a lot of new ideas about divination because it was already overflowing with them.


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[Assistant] One great example can be seen in how, for a very long time, there was very little distinction between astronomy, the scientific study of celestial bodies, and astrology, the study of how the movements of those celestial bodies influence human lives. Science and divination inhabited the same space in most people's minds.


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[Assistant] Folklore scholar PJ Heather wrote in the 1950s about one particular Arthurian legend that involved a shooting star. In the tale, the magician Merlin interpreted the position of the comet to hint at key military victories that loomed in Arthur's future. Because part of the comet pointed toward Ireland, Arthur traveled there and was said to have defeated his enemies.


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[Assistant] All thanks to a shooting star and Merlin's insight into the future.


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[Assistant] And of course, the Christian story of the birth of Christ shows just how old this idea really is. The wise men from the east, as it's said, have long been thought to be Persian priests known as Magi.


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[Assistant] According to historian Owen Davies, most ancient writers, like Pliny the Elder, believe that magic itself, and therefore divination, was invented by this specific group of priests. And the fact that the biblical wise men interpreted a celestial object and then followed it across the Middle East certainly lines up with that idea.


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[Assistant] Divination was about more than dreams and mirrors and looking intently at the night sky. It was about prying key knowledge out of the hands of the gods and then using it to make better decisions. To seek the truth in the face of mystery. To bring order and meaning to a life that was so often filled with chaos and frustration.


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[Assistant] And in many cultures, that process took on a very particular shape.


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[Assistant] It might sound like a brand new concept to a lot of us, but trust me, you've bumped into it many times before.


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[Assistant] Centuries ago, none of our modern forensic tools were available. No DNA testing or fingerprints or security footage. So to give a boost to the frustrating process of dishing out justice in a murder investigation, people began to incorporate elements of divination into the process.


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[Assistant] Specifically, a practice known as trial by ordeal. And the reasons were out of this world. Literally.


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[Assistant] You see, there was a common belief that the gods would favor the innocent. Sometimes by offering protection, but most commonly by helping bring their killers to justice.


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[Assistant] And this wasn't purely a Christian belief either. According to historian Mitchell Roth, for about 400 years beginning in 1215, almost every single culture in the world included trials by ordeal in their legal system. Because in the face of the unknown, the help of the gods was often needed.


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[Assistant] The basic idea behind trial by ordeal is relatively simple. If someone was murdered, there were certain things that could be done to give the gods a chance to point out the true killer. If those steps were followed correctly, there would be no question and the killer would be brought to justice.


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[Assistant] One type of trial by ordeal that was common in Europe was known as trial by fire. Of course, you've probably used that phrase at one point in your life, usually to hint at a trying or painful experience. But in the Middle Ages, its name was a lot more literal.


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[Assistant] A trial by fire usually involves some variation of endurance in the presence of deadly heat. Sometimes the accused was required to walk on burning coals, while other times they had to dip their arm into scalding water to retrieve a stone. It all depended on the culture you lived in and the local traditions of your day.


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[Assistant] Differences aside though, the goal was always the same. The accused would endure painful, deadly heats and then their wounds would be treated. Three days later, those wounds would be checked. If they had healed sufficiently, they were declared innocent and set free.


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[Assistant] If they had not though, it was a sign of their guilt and their true punishment began.


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[Assistant] Another common method of divination for justice was known as trial by water. Just think of that classic Monty Python in the Holy Grail scene where they discuss dunking the accused witch. A bit of comedy that was based on a horrible reality. If the accused was innocent, they would sink.


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[Assistant] If they floated though, or even simply swam away, they were guilty.


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[Assistant] Trial by Hot Iron probably makes sense just from its name, but because I'm a fan of detail, here are the basics. The accused would be handed a red-hot piece of metal, usually iron, and then they were required to carry it a prescribed distance. If they dropped it, they failed. If the wound didn't heal fast enough, they failed. Either way, the gods had spoken.


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[Assistant] And there were others, including one called trial by morsel, which involves swallowing a piece of food, and trial by bean, another connected to food, this one involving a bean that was poisonous.


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[Assistant] Trial by diving seemed to be limited to India and Southern Asia, and it involved staying underwater long enough to be proven innocent. But the most bizarre test, as far as I'm concerned, was known as trial by blood.


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[Assistant] Keep in mind, in the case of murder, there's a lot of emotion. There's pain and loss, as well as anger and confusion. People want answers, and the biggest question is usually about who the true killer was. So trial by blood served the purpose by giving people a systematic way of discovering that person's identity. Here's how it worked.


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[Assistant] Once the search for the true killer began, the body of the victim was placed naked on a table or floor in a common space.


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[Assistant] Then the suspects would be led one by one toward it, where they were instructed to circle the body three times. Then they would approach the body and touch the wound that had killed the victim.


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[Assistant] If nothing happened they would be considered innocent and released from custody. But if their touch somehow caused the wound to produce fresh blood, that was seen as a sign that they were guilty.


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[Assistant] Historians call the process cruentation, from the Latin cruentare, which means to make bloody. According to forensic psychiatrist Robert Britton, this tradition most likely has origins in ancient Germany and was probably spread across Europe by the advancements of the Roman Empire.


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[Assistant] King James I of Scotland, in his 1597 book called Demonology, described cruentation with rich detail.


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[Assistant] In a secret murder, he wrote, if the dead carcass be at any time thereafter handled by the murderer, it will gush out blood, as if the blood were crying to the heavens for revenge of the murderer, God having appointed that secret supernatural sign.


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[Assistant] But the intervention of God wasn't the only core belief in action. There have been a lot of theories over the centuries about why cruentation was an effective practice for finding the true killer. Depending on the era or the latest scientific ideas, the reason for its usefulness shifted slightly.


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[Assistant] 16th century physician Paracelsus believed that the human soul resided in the blood and that violent murder could cause the soul to stay in the body longer than normal death. If a suspect's touch caused fresh blood to flow, he believed it was the soul's way of getting the final word.


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[Assistant] 17th century physician John Webster had a similar idea. To him though, the relationship between the body and the soul was a romantic one. They were bound together by love, and a murder had a way of severing that bond prematurely. In response, the blood inside the body would flow outward in the presence of the killer to seek revenge.


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[Assistant] It was an unusual tradition, to say the least. But for a very long time, it made sense to people. In fact, it found its way into popular literature, which highlighted how widespread it really was, but also served to keep the tradition alive.


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[Assistant] Sir Walter Scott mentions it in his novel The Fair Maid of Perth, as does Shakespeare in Richard the Third. It even appears in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by legendary author Mark Twain.


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[Assistant] But that's the benefit of our modern world. All those crazy traditions from ancient history, however justified or rationalized they might have been, are now relics of the past, thanks to our maturity as a culture.


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[Assistant] It happened in the heat of the moment, but it had also been a long time coming.


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[Assistant] Williams was an outdoorsman, in a way. Back then they called folk like him backwoodsman, and that's the word used by Judge James Emmett, who recorded this story for posterity.


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[Assistant] Williams was happier when he was in nature, often hunting in the wooded river valley outside of town. So it wasn't unusual that he was walking through the trees one day. Or that he was carrying his rifle. It's probably something he did each and every day.


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[Assistant] No, what was unusual was that he spotted a figure sitting at the base of a large tree.


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[Assistant] He squinted and decided that he recognized the man. It was his brother, someone he rarely got along with and had recently had a number of heated arguments with. And so it was that mixture of hatred that gave him an idea. He pulled his rifle from his shoulder, took aim from a distance, and fired. And the bullet hit its target.


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[Assistant] The man sitting against the tree slumped forward, a bloody hole in his head. But as Williams approached, panic began to gnaw at him. The face was becoming less and less like his brother with every step.


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[Assistant] And sure enough, when he finally reached the body, his fears were confirmed. He had killed someone else instead.


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[Assistant] Williams backtracked and headed back to his home, probably hoping no one had witnessed what he'd done. And no one had. But when the body was found a few days later, the authorities went looking for clues. Because the victim, a man named Louis Sartain, had been loved by everyone, and they wanted to bring his killer to justice.


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[Assistant] The other, though, was quickly linked to Williams, although it was purely circumstantial. Williams was known around town as a hothead, and he was prone to violent arguments, all of which made him a prime suspect. But they had no definitive proof, yet.


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[Assistant] Sartain's body was buried a short while later, and life seemed to move on in the small village. But people were keeping an eye on Williams, waiting for him to crack.


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[Assistant] Just about everyone knew that he was the killer. They believed it right down to their bones, and they assumed he would eventually crumble under the weight of guilt and confess.


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[Assistant] But as the days wore on without an answer, the people in town became more and more desperate. And when desperation enters the picture, folklore is often there to meet it.


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[Assistant] Judge Emmett doesn't record who it was who stepped forward with the idea, but at some point it was suggested that they exhume Sartain's body and bring the community together for a bit of divination through trial by blood.


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[Assistant] After gaining the proper legal permission, the body was dug up and then transported to the local church where it was put on display in the center of the room.


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[Assistant] Then the constable called every man in town to step inside. One by one they were called forward and compelled to place their hands on Sartain's corpse. But it wasn't an easy thing to do. Emmett describes the state of the body better than I ever could.


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[Assistant] His corpse, Emmett wrote, presented a horrifying sight to the great concourse of people that gathered at the church in response to the constable's summons or the prompting of curiosity that was wrought to a wonderful pitch.


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[Assistant] The murdered man's hair and beard had grown fully one half of an inch and his body was fairly alive with slimy grave worms which were feasting upon his flesh. The stench arriving from the decaying body could not have been endured under less exciting circumstances.


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[Assistant] Somehow though, the men of the town managed to do what was required. One by one they approached the corpse, placed their hands on it, and then walked away.


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[Assistant] And it went on like that for a long while, until finally the only one left to step forward was Williams, which had been planned all along. And as he stepped into the room and drew near to the body, everyone held their breath.


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[Assistant] This was the moment they had been waiting for. The blood of Sartain would cry out against his killer and justice would be served.


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[Assistant] It didn't help that Williams looked pale and nervous, although that was understandable. He knew he was guilty, and he knew the risk he was putting himself in. Tradition had taught all of them that trial by blood was a powerful tool for divining the truth.


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[Assistant] Slowly, Williams reached out his hand and then placed his palm on the cold, rotting flesh of the man he'd killed.


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[Assistant] And he was right. It was a weird thing to do. But not just because of the tradition itself.


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[Assistant] It was unusual because it wasn't something you might expect to find in the American state of Ohio, and most certainly not in the year 1818, long after the end of the Enlightenment.


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[Assistant] But there it was, a relic from the past, still alive and active long after everyone might have assumed it was gone.


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[Assistant] Sometimes the traditions we cling to fail to deliver. They illustrate our gullibility and expose our fears. Most of the time it's simply disappointing, but every now and then it can crack the foundation we've built our hope upon.


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[Assistant] But more than that, folklore does something else.


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[Assistant] Sometimes, all we really want are answers. There's so much in life that's grey and undetermined, it's easy to be overwhelmed by the mystery of it all. And for a good part of recorded history, people have tamed that mystery with divination.


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[Assistant] I realize just how simple it would be to write off the generations who came before us as primitive, overly superstitious fools. But the fact of the matter is that they were a lot like you and I. They had fears and hopes and unanswered questions, and they built systems that were designed to give them a greater sense of security.


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[Assistant] The practice of trial by blood began to dwindle sometime after 1215, when Pope Innocent III made it clear that clergy weren't supposed to get involved in divination.


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[Assistant] It's easy to see why priests had been pulled into these trials by ordeal though. They were viewed by most people as the members of their community who were the closest to God. So their participation brought a sense of guarantee. With God on their side, the truth would always come out.


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[Assistant] What helped keep it all going for so long was just enough coincidence. All it took was one or two instances in each generation where the wounds of a victim's body actually did produce fresh blood to convince people that the practice worked. There was even one that took place later than the one recorded by Judge Emmett.


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[Assistant] According to a South Carolina newspaper, a community performed the trial by blood ritual in 1874 and it worked.


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[Assistant] Williams managed to escape the noose, thanks to the tricky nature of his own trial. But the townsfolk still held out for revenge, for the blood of Sartain to finally get the last word. And that might have actually happened.


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[Assistant] You see, sometime after the test failed, Williams encountered a man named Joe Mounce. The pair spent an afternoon in friendly conversation over drinks, but once the alcohol took over, Williams became the angry, violent man everyone knew him to be.


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[Assistant] After an altercation broke out between the two men, Mounts grabbed a blunt object and clubbed Williams over the head.


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[Assistant] No, it didn't kill him, but it did leave quite the impression on his skull. A sizable dent, in fact. So the doctor was called to tend to the wound, and he suggested the most unusual solution. He proposed using a thick drill bit on a hand crank drill to carve out the dent and relieve the pressure.


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[Assistant] Maybe it was the alcohol, or perhaps the pain was too much to bear. But Williams quickly agreed to the idea.


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[Assistant] Unsurprisingly, it didn't work. When the doctor was finished, he had a patient who was in more pain now than he had been earlier. And not only that, but the open wound in his skull allowed infection to set in. A short while later, Williams passed away.


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[Assistant] And those who knew the details couldn't help but notice the poetic justice of it all. And how it all seemed to confirm the idea that Sartain's blood had indeed found a way to get the final word in their story together. Williams, in the end, died with a bloody hole in his head. Just like the man he'd murdered.


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[Assistant] The world of divination, and specifically the various trials by ordeal used for that purpose, feels like something out of a fantasy novel. Just hold this red-hot iron rod for a moment and the gods will have their say. It's easy to see why people have been fascinated by it all for centuries.


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[Assistant] And if that includes you, stick around through this brief sponsor break for one more glimpse into that strange and gruesome world.


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[Assistant] Over the years, there have been a lot of theories put forward about why cruentation worked. Keep in mind, it actually doesn't, but it seemed to work often enough to not only reinforce the belief, but to inspire scientists to explain why.


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[Assistant] I mentioned Paracelsus and John Webster earlier, but there were others who weighed in on the subject. The 13th century philosopher Giles of Rome had a number of theories, all of which look a bit foolish in retrospect. Still, hearing about them can help us understand why people were so willing to believe in the practice for so long.


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[Assistant] One idea he had was that blood had a sort of magnetic attraction to itself. Giles of Rome assumed that the killer would use a knife, and that they wouldn't clean the blade, and would then keep that knife on their possession, all before participating in trial by blood.


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[Assistant] It's a lot of assumption, I know. But in that specific setup, he believed that the blood on the knife would lure the blood in the body to come out, causing the wounds to bleed. Naturally.


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[Assistant] Another idea he had was that there was some sort of exchange of spiritual energy between the murderer and their victim.


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[Assistant] Giles theorized that this exchange took place through the eyes and that returning to the body to look the victim in the face would cause those spirits to rejoin. All that magnetic energy, or whatever you want to call it, would stir the blood inside the corpse, causing some to bleed out.


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[Assistant] I think you get the idea. It was a mysterious practice that was built on a bold claim that the gods or some other supernatural force would help to bring the killer to justice. And every time a rite of cruentation ended with fresh blood, it served as confirmation bias, reinforcing the old beliefs. Stories. Like this one. Philip Stansfield wasn't a nice man.


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[Assistant] There had been stories about him since his youth, about how his rebellious behavior wasn't proper for the son of a wealthy nobleman. While Sir James Stansfield was a respected member of society and the wealthy owner of a number of textile mills, his son was a bit of a disappointment.


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[Assistant] But in January of 1688, Sir James' body was found in the nearby river. His son, Philip, seemed upset and distraught, and was quick to claim that the older man had drowned. But there were some who suspected foul play.


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[Assistant] The authorities were brought in and after the autopsy had been performed, it became clear that Sir James hadn't drowned at all, but had been killed at home in his bed before being dumped into the river. It was a shocking revelation, but it also meant that they now had to catch a killer. But they already had a suspect.


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[Assistant] To help in that quest, the physicians cleaned and dressed the dead man's wounds. All under the pretense that they were preparing him for burial. When it was time to place the body into the coffin though, Philip Stansfield was called in to help.


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[Assistant] He didn't know it yet, but everyone else had a plan.


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[Assistant] It's said that when Philip placed his hands on his father's corpse and lifted it off the table, blood began to seep from the man's wounds. So much blood, in fact, that it ran down the side of his body where Philip had grabbed him, covering the young man's hands in a wash of crimson.


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[Assistant] The sight of it was so frightening to him that he dropped his father's body on the floor and then dashed from the room


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[Assistant] When they found him later, he was seated inside a nearby church, muttering to himself while wiping his hands on his clothing. It wasn't a true confession, but it was evidence enough to have him arrested and put on trial. And the key piece of evidence was how he failed the ancient test of cruentation.


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[Assistant] The trial began on February 6th of 1688 at the High Court in Edinburgh, and it was over the very next day. Philip Stansfield's own attorney tried to get the cruentation results dismissed, but amazingly, the court overruled it. And while it wasn't the only evidence brought by the Crown to prove his guilt, it was certainly the most exciting.


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[Assistant] In fact, the King's Council, a high-profile Scottish lawyer named Sir George Mackenzie, spent a good amount of time explaining how thorough the physicians had been in cleaning and dressing the wounds on the body.


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[Assistant] And then, to drive the point home, he made it clear that God had delivered justice to them all. All the jury had to do was act on it.


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[Assistant] Oh, and if that name, Sir George Mackenzie, rings a bell, that's because he's been discussed in a previous episode. The haunted tomb of Bloody Mackenzie, as he was known, is a popular destination for visitors to the infamous Greyfriars burial ground.


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[Assistant] After a verdict of guilty, Philip Stansfield was taken to the main market in Edinburgh a week later, on February 15th, to be executed for his crimes before a crowd of many thousands.


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[Assistant] He was hanged sometime between two and four in the afternoon, then his tongue was cut out and burned on the gallows platform, all before his right hand was cut off and sent back to his hometown for display there.


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[Assistant] As far as historians can tell, the trial of Philip Stansfield was the last time the Scottish courts allowed cruentation to be used as evidence in a trial. But that's not the only interesting thing about the life and death of Philip Stansfield. Because a little bit earlier I mentioned that he was a rebellious youth. And I want to give you one more anecdote to elaborate on that.


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[Assistant] It seems that at some point in the early 1670s, Philip attended church one morning while he was a student at the University of St. Andrews. As the minister John Welsh was preaching, Philip pulled something out of his pocket and threw it at the man. And amazingly, it actually hit him.


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[Assistant] Welsh stopped in the middle of his sentence and scanned the congregation for the one responsible, but somehow Philip escaped being identified. Instead, the minister took a long, slow breath and then pronounced a warning.


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[Assistant] I do not know who put this public affront on a servant of Christ, he said, but being who I am, I am persuaded there will be more people present at your death than there are hearing me preach today.


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


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


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


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


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[Assistant] It wasn't the first time he'd had the dream. In fact, it was one more in a long series of visions that had come to him in his sleep in the winter of 1913. And they weren't easy to process. They involve tragedy on a massive scale.


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[Assistant] Floods washed across Europe between unusually tall versions of the Alps and the North Sea. Waves of yellow carried innumerable dead, while the debris of civilization lay all around. The sea and rivers turned red with blood, and an entire region was frozen solid by arctic blasts. It was horrifying, and left him feeling nauseous and depressed. And he felt like it meant something.


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[Assistant] In fact, he couldn't shake the feeling that his dream was a warning, a signal that something terrifying was about to take place, and no one in Europe was safe.


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[Assistant] By the time his final dream took place in June of 1914, his puzzlement had turned to certainty. War was coming.


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[Assistant] Less than two months later, on July 28th, it all came true.


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[Assistant] World War I began, and Europe found itself consumed with destruction as horrifying as he had envisioned.


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[Assistant] Who was Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology and a pioneer of modern psychiatry. If anyone was going to recognize the power of dreams, it was Jung. But just because they are powerful doesn't mean they are safe.


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[Assistant] Dreams are just too complex to nail down as purely good or entirely evil.


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[Assistant] And it's that unpredictable aspect that gives dreams their mysterious aura. They can delight us with pure fantasy or stab us with the knife of grief over a long lost loved one. They can reconnect us with sights and sounds from our youth or they can paint a picture that is difficult to understand.


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[Assistant] And if you've ever had the sort of dream that stuck with you the entire day, like a ghost that was eager to haunt your mind, then you understand just how problematic they can be. A dream come true, it seems, might not always be a good thing.


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[Assistant] There are few words in our vocabulary today that carry as much weight and power as the word dream.


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[Assistant] We use it to talk about our aspirations when we dream of a better life. It becomes a measure of our very best when we label a group of athletes the dream team. And it sets us up for bitter disappointment when someone mutters, in your dreams. But that power and weight isn't new.


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[Assistant] In fact, cultures have been talking about dreams for thousands of years. The earliest surviving written evidence can be found in the land of pharaohs and pyramids, ancient Egypt, and even then, it was all about vocabulary.


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[Assistant] Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics represent the idea of sleep with the figure of a bed, while dream is represented with an open eye. In the context of sleep, that open eye has been translated as meaning to come awake, but it's used in many other contexts to communicate sight, to see, or to be vigilant, and there's a reason for that.


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[Assistant] In all of the ancient Egyptian writings about dreams, they are treated as nouns, not verbs.


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[Assistant] You wouldn't say, I dreamt of wealth and glory. Instead, you would say, I witnessed a dream of wealth and glory. And there's a difference there. Rather than being the one in control, the ancient Egyptians believed that dreams happened and they were simply a witness to what they saw.


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[Assistant] And that sort of attitude toward dreams led to some unique beliefs. For instance, it was believed that the soul left the body during a dream in much the same way it did upon death. Which meant that there was another doorway to the afterlife. Or at least a window through which they could look and see the other side.


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[Assistant] Which of course leads to new questions. If you can enter a dream and view the other world, what benefit could that bring into your own life?


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[Assistant] Early on, that led ancient Egyptians to write letters to dead loved ones, asking for favor. A soldier might request that his deceased father appear in a dream and show him a vision of victory in battle. And there are lots of examples of this, all collected into something called the Letters of the Dead.


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[Assistant] By the time of the new kingdom, around 1500 BCE, dreams became a tool for communication with the divine, but only for royalty.


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[Assistant] It was an odd mixture of politics and religion, where, yes, they believed that they could speak with the gods in their dreams, but also, conveniently, they were the only ones who could report back on what happened. And it was almost always an affirmation of the Pharaoh's power.


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[Assistant] Here's an example I think most people will recognize. Picture the Sphinx in your mind.


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[Assistant] Do you remember that tall, flat stone between its front paws? That's called the Dream Stele, and it explains how Thutmose IV had a dream in that very spot about how he needed to unbury the ancient Sphinx from the sand in order to become Pharaoh.


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[Assistant] He did, and of course, he did. At least that's how the story is told. Like I said, convenient, right?


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[Assistant] Centuries later, that communication channel opened to the rest of the citizens of ancient Egypt, allowing anyone to seek answers within their dreams.


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[Assistant] Which led to a reinvention of the way they viewed dreams. Suddenly they were a source of prophecy and divination, where everyday people could find significance in the imagery they witnessed while asleep.


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[Assistant] This was harnessed in a couple of ways. First, there were dream books, essentially collections of common dream images and their associated meanings. You could buy the book and then wake up in the morning and look up what you had experienced. But it also led to the rise of sleep temples, the home of something called dream incubation.


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[Assistant] Basically, there were rooms inside many of the temples where a person could go in search of answers or wisdom. They would make a sacrifice to that particular god and then go to sleep on a specially designed dream bed. Once the person woke back up, they would speak with one of the priests there, who would explain the meaning of what they saw.


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[Assistant] Now, dream incubation was a tool used by the Egyptians for centuries, but they certainly weren't the only ones.


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[Assistant] As cultures began to mingle, ideas were shared along with trade goods. The ancient Greeks began to experiment with their own versions of sleep temples. But it wasn't until the cult of Asclepius began in the 6th century BCE that things really kicked off.


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[Assistant] Which is interesting, because Asclepius was more than just the son of Apollo and a hero in the Greek world. He was a figure of wisdom and power, who was most often depicted carrying a staff that most of us would recognize today. A long rod with a snake wrapped around it. You see, Asclepius was the god of medicine.


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[Assistant] And sure, it would be narrow-minded to believe that the connection between dreams and medicine all started with the Asclepius cult 2500 years ago. Those ideas were certainly old by the time they started to build their sleep temples. But it is that anchor moment that we need to make our next jump in time. Because everyone has dreams. And everyone has problems.


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[Assistant] And it's that pair of predictable experiences that kept all of these ancient ideas alive for thousands of years. Some say there is power in our dreams. It's there, just waiting for us to tap into it. And as it turns out, modern history is full of individuals who claim to have done just that. Through their dreams, they had the power to heal.


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[Assistant] As we've already established, the connection between dreams and healing is an ancient one. In fact, there's a powerful story from the middle of the second century that bears repeating.


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[Assistant] According to the historical account, a young Greek man was suffering from a buildup of fluids beneath his diaphragm, threatening his life. But Asclepius came to him in a dream and told him how to fix the issue through self-surgery. And when the young man awoke and tried the remedy, it worked.


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[Assistant] And this story isn't just significant because of its age. It turns out that young Greek man,


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[Assistant] Was Galen, the Greek physician who is considered one of the most influential figures in the history of medicine. Think about that. A man at the forefront of the medical field of his day, allowed dreams to play a part in his surgical practice.


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[Assistant] Today, we would see that as a bit unorthodox. If not, downright silly. But history has always been full of people offering medical advice that drifts outside the overlapping circles of science and common sense. And one of the most interesting moments took place in the middle of the 19th century with the advent of mesmerism.


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[Assistant] Without spending ten minutes explaining in detail exactly what mesmerism was, here's a real quick tour. Franz Mesmer was a German doctor who proposed a strange idea in the 1770s.


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[Assistant] He believed there was a natural energy inside living beings that could be transferred to other people and objects. And he called that energy animal magnetism. Over time, it also became known by his own name, mesmerism.


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[Assistant] Early practitioners of mesmerism believed that they could harness that energy to do things, which is where the world of medicine in the 19th century comes into play. Because that's when there was an explosion of alternative practices. Fertile soil for the arrival of the clairvoyant physician.


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[Assistant] One of them was a man we only know today by the name of Mr. Johnson. He advertised his services in the New York Daily Herald, claiming to have years of experience using animal magnetism to, and I quote, remove almost every class of disease.


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[Assistant] But it turns out he himself wasn't a clairvoyant. No, that was the assistant who worked for him.


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[Assistant] In 1872, a man named E. A. Smith ran an ad in the Burlington Free Press up in Vermont.


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[Assistant] This clairvoyant physician offered free consultations and then charged only one dollar for the exam. According to his advertisement, he had already worked with over 3,000 patients, which goes a long way toward helping us understand just how popular and convincing this new practice was.


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[Assistant] In all of these cases, the work of the clairvoyant physician took on the same pattern. Mesmerism was used to place a person into a sleep-like trance. And then that person would learn about the medical cures in a dream.


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[Assistant] Then they would speak them out loud while still asleep and the assistant or manager would write the instructions down and pass that on to the patient.


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[Assistant] Let me also add that this wasn't spiritualism. Spiritualism was built around the idea that the living could communicate with the dead. And this was purely a medical thing, focused on finding new cures and treatments in a new place, inside our dreams.


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[Assistant] Of course, this sort of work quickly caught the attention of the government because, honestly, it smelled like fraud from a mile away.


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[Assistant] In 1884, a whole list of trans doctors were prosecuted in New York State, including George W. Barrett. He claimed to be able to cure a man's son with medicine discovered through his dreams. But after 18 visits over seven months, the patient died. Which leads us to Lucy.


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[Assistant] She was born in 1819 to a large family in rural Vermont. And for a while, she seemed to live a normal life.


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[Assistant] But according to the stories, that family farm wasn't as successful as they had hoped. And by the age of eight, Lucy found herself moving into a foster home. And soon after that, the workforce. Which is where she learned to make clothing.


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[Assistant] It turns out Lucy was pretty good at it. Within a few years she was running a bustling business making custom clothing for a growing market.


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[Assistant] I'm sure it brought her a lot of joy, being able to do something special and earn a living at it, especially after such an impoverished youth. But it was a demanding occupation, and over time it took its toll on her body.


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[Assistant] Now the details of her early years are a bit fuzzy. There's just not a lot of material to provide solid timelines or connect specific ages to certain events. What we do know is that sometime in her early 20s, Lucy became so ill that she was confined to bed.


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[Assistant] The local doctor was stumped and unable to help her. And for a while it seemed as if Lucy was going to pass away long before her time. And then, her brother came to help.


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[Assistant] Lucy's brother George was, coincidentally, a mesmerist who lived and worked in northern New York.


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[Assistant] According to the story, he arrived to find her sleeping and instead of waking her up to say hello he motioned his hands over her head while


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[Assistant] Well, doing whatever it was that Mesmerist did. Amazingly though, it drew a response.


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[Assistant] Still sleeping, Lucy was said to have dictated a remedy that was meant to cure her illness. It was a concoction of herbs and roots, although the exact ingredients and the way they were supposed to have been prepared have disappeared from the public record. But George wrote them down and then set about making the medicine for his sister.


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[Assistant] Now, logic says that this sort of thing shouldn't work. That instructions mumbled by a sleep-talking tailor shouldn't carry significant medical weight.


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[Assistant] The world was a lot different in the late 19th century. Patients gave morphine to their teething toddlers to help with the pain, and opium was known colloquially as God's own medicine and administered prolifically as a cure-all drug.


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[Assistant] And so George gave her this medicine and Lucy didn't ask questions as far as we can tell.


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[Assistant] She had no memory of the dream or of the specific instructions and yet took the herbal cure from her brother's hand and ingested it without fear. And then the unthinkable happened. It worked.


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[Assistant] Sure, it was enough that she was free from her sickbed and able to get back to work, but the way in which it all happened begged for reflection. If there was a power hidden deep inside her dreams that could solve the mysteries of her own illness, what else could it do?


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[Assistant] Was it limited to her own body? Or could she, perhaps, offer her help to others? So that's what she did.


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[Assistant] Her own physician, a man named Dr. Douglas, literally closed his traditional medical practice when he saw the results of her powers and reinvented himself as a manager for Lucy.


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[Assistant] Patients came from all over, paying 50 cents for each diagnosis, and they did this for over three years.


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[Assistant] Every healing took place while Lucy was asleep, with the information used to treat them always coming straight from her dreams. And unlike so many of the other clairvoyant physicians who only offered treatments for invisible, unprovable conditions, things like headaches or sickness, Lucy did things that could be seen with the naked eye.


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[Assistant] She set broken bones and dislocated joints with her own hands and did all of this without the need for anesthetics.


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[Assistant] Whatever Lucy was doing, it was miles apart from every other quack doctor on the scene. And because of that, it drew a following. People believed in her. And literally put their health into her hands.


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[Assistant] Over time, things changed for Lucy. In 1846, she married Charles Cook, a man from Vermont who also happened to be a mesmerist. Because why not, right? And together, they managed a small inn for their main income while Lucy continued to take on patients.


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[Assistant] Charles, of course, used his skill to induce her trances and together they helped countless people.


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[Assistant] As her own skills developed, she branched out. She began to offer other kinds of information to people, not just medical help. And she continued to do all of it while in a trance, which eventually led to the nickname, Sleeping Lucy. And Sleeping Lucy was about to expand her services.


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[Assistant] The details are a bit fuzzy because the story comes to us through a 1936 radio interview with a man named Dorman Kent. Apparently Kent's own grandfather had an encounter with Lucy back in the late 1860s that defied logic. And he was never able to forget the story.


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[Assistant] Kent's grandfather, it seems, was a very wealthy man who needed to carry large amounts of cash on his person each day to help him run his various businesses. And one day, his wallet disappeared with over three hundred dollars inside. A tidy sum worth over seven grand in today's market.


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[Assistant] Naturally, the man looked all over for his lost billfold. But after three days of searching, he came up empty.


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[Assistant] So, on a whim, and probably as a last ditch effort, he traveled to see Lucy and ask her for help.


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[Assistant] Lucy promptly went into a deep sleep and then began to describe the location of the wallet. It was in someone's pants, she said. Pants that were currently hanging in a closet. But it wasn't dark in there. Down at the end of the long narrow closet was a window which let in a good amount of light. Kent's grandfather was awestruck.


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[Assistant] He knew that closet well, because, surprise, surprise, it was his own. And after traveling back to his house and opening the closet door, he was delighted to find his missing wallet right where Lucy said it would be.


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[Assistant] It wasn't spiritualism, which was growing in popularity at the time, and it wasn't magic, but it wasn't normal either. Lucy could fall asleep and locate missing objects, and that was something people couldn't help but whisper about. Soon enough, everyone in the area knew what she could do, and that led to even more drama.


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[Assistant] On April 18th of 1872, a 19-year-old woman named Nellie Jewett went missing from a small town in nearby New Hampshire.


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[Assistant] Most people weren't worried. They believed that she had simply skipped town to go live in Boston after having a big public argument with her mother earlier that morning.


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[Assistant] But there were some who disagreed, and the lack of evidence of Nellie actually having moved was disconcerting to say the least.


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[Assistant] Even after the police were brought in, they failed to track Nellie down, which is when someone on the police force suggested that they ask sleeping Lucy for help.


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[Assistant] Now, I can't prove this, but even if this wasn't the very first instance of a police department bringing in a clairvoyant helper, it's one of the earliest. Or, then again, maybe it's just the natural evolution of the function served by those ancient Egyptian sleep temples. Either way, Lucy agreed to help.


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[Assistant] She told them where to look for Nellie's body, upriver from the Monadnock Mills Dam, and the police went out to investigate. And at this point, I doubt you'll be surprised to learn that Nellie's body was found in that exact spot. It wasn't a lost wallet, but Lucy had proven once again that her gifts could do more than just heal people. They could provide answers.


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[Assistant] She settled back into her medical practice and continued to bring healing and relief to everyone she could.


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[Assistant] In 1876, Lucy left her life in Vermont behind and moved to Boston with her daughter. Her husband Charles had passed away, and she was looking for a fresh start and a new opportunity.


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[Assistant] For the next 19 years, she would work hard to grow her reputation and help more people. In fact, one of her own advertisements claimed that she had been consulted by over 200,000 people during her career and set thousands of bones and joints in the process.


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[Assistant] She eventually married again, and amassed a small fortune, and life was good for a very long while. Then the fortune dried up, her daughter abandoned her, and in 1893 she came down with pneumonia, which never fully went away.


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[Assistant] On May 24th of 1895, Lucy Ainsworth Cook passed away at the age of 76 from what would later turn out to be colon cancer.


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[Assistant] And I find it more than a little ironic that someone as powerful as Lucy, someone who helped thousands of desperate people find comfort and healing through a career that spanned over five decades, was unable to use that same healing power to save herself.


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[Assistant] Whether or not we believe that the stories about Lucy were true, her death suggests a painful truth. Maybe even dreams have limits.


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[Assistant] Even today, in 2019, it's easy to view sleep as something mysterious and impenetrable.


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[Assistant] We might be surrounded by the latest technology, powerful advancements in medical science, and a deeper understanding of human psychology, and yet we still wake up every now and then from a bizarre dream that leaves us feeling haunted.


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[Assistant] Dreams are frustrating because they sit outside our realm of control. They happen, and we experience them, but we can't make them start or stop.


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[Assistant] And I think that's one of the biggest reasons why humans have been obsessed with them since the dawn of civilization. From the ancient Egyptians to sleep studies in university psych departments, we can't stop thinking about our dreams.


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[Assistant] Lucy Ainsworth-Cook and the others like her stood in a tricky place. They made claims that were entirely too wild to believe. And yet the source of their powers, their very own dreams, were the one thing that couldn't be put on display as proof.


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[Assistant] It was an inside job, so to speak, and the people around them were left with a simple choice. To believe it or not.


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[Assistant] One woman chose to believe the stories. She was a writer from New Hampshire who had endured more grief and trauma in her first 30 years than anyone should have to suffer.


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[Assistant] In fact, she later wrote that whenever someone in her family was ill, she would immediately take them to Vermont to have a consultation with Lucy, where they would always be diagnosed and healed.


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[Assistant] She was fascinated by it, and that obsession with healing would direct the rest of her life.


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[Assistant] This writer, Mary Baker Eddy, would go on to found a belief system known as Christian Science. Sort of a hybrid between Christianity and medicine that held that all illness is simply a figment of our imagination.


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[Assistant] Before she passed away in 1910, Mary's new religion had grown to nearly a quarter of a million members and became the fastest growing religion in the United States. Healing, it seems, will never not be popular.


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[Assistant] What hasn't lasted all these years are most of the records about Lucy's life and work.


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[Assistant] It's honestly a bit frustrating. For a person held in such high regard in local lore and whose name appears on countless lists as one of the most powerful trans doctors in history, there are huge holes in the record of her life outside of newspaper advertisements and the stories told by the people she interacted with. Lucy Ainsworth-Cook seemed to arrive unexpectedly.


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[Assistant] The story of Sleeping Lucy is certainly one of the most bizarre to come out of the state of Vermont, but it's certainly not the only tale with bizarre dreams at its heart. Stick around after this short sponsor break to hear one more story that is sure to fill your head with visions.


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[Assistant] Marvin's owned not one, but two local businesses.


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[Assistant] There was the farm, which sat on the edge of a small lake known to the locals as Fairfield Pond. And about three miles away, the couple also owned and operated a sawmill, which was both necessary in the ever-expanding Vermont of the 1840s, and also pretty common, given how wooded the state was, and still is.


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[Assistant] The two businesses meant that the Marvins had a number of people who worked for them, cutting timber and working the farm, which meant that they stayed very busy. But they also tried to make time for their community, and Mrs. Marvin received frequent visits from the wives of men who worked for her and her husband.


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[Assistant] One of those visitors was a young mother named Mrs. Clifford. Each day she would walk the short road that connected her own property to that of the Marvin's, and then the two women would spend a while chatting. Mrs. Clifford always brought along her infant girl, and the pair of them always wore a matching set of shawls to keep the sun out of their faces.


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[Assistant] One day though, Mrs. Clifford and her child were accompanied by Mr. Clifford himself. It was a Sunday and he had come to ask for some help from the Marvins. Mrs. Clifford's parents lived in Fairfield, just on the other side of the pond. And rather than walking all the way around it, they were wondering if the Marvins might lend them their boat.


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[Assistant] Mr. Marvin agreed and the young family set off toward the shore where they untethered the boat and rode west.


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[Assistant] The Marvins got on with their Sunday plans and quickly forgot about the visit.


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[Assistant] At sundown though, a knock brought them back to their front door where they found Mr. Clifford standing by himself.


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[Assistant] Mr. Marvin assumed the man had come to tell them that the boat had been returned and secured at the dock.


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[Assistant] But one look at Clifford told them there was more to the story than that.


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[Assistant] Mr. Marvin assembled some of his employees and the group set out searching the water for bodies, sometime before sunrise. They found them.


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[Assistant] Mrs. Marvin was there with Mr. Clifford when he viewed the bodies, then gave one slow, grim nod to signal that, yes, they were indeed his wife and child. But she noticed something else. The matching shawls that they had worn each and every day were both missing. Lost the cold waters of the pond, no doubt. A few nights later, Mrs. Marvin had a dream.


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[Assistant] In it, she was standing on the shore of Fairfield Pond, where she could see Mr. Clifford stumbling out of the dark waters. As the dream unfolded, she followed his path into the dark copse of trees, weaving in and out of tall oaks and fallen pine. Finally, Clifford came to a stop at an old hollow stump.


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[Assistant] Bending down on one knee, he pulled something from his shirt. There was a flash of color and Mrs. Marvin recognized the fabric at once. It was the set of identical shawls that Clifford's wife and child had been wearing the day they drowned.


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[Assistant] She then watched as he stuffed them both inside the stump and covered the opening from wandering eyes.


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[Assistant] Mrs. Marvin awoke the following morning with an ill feeling. Soon after, she asked one of the farmhands to walk with her to the pond and then veered into the copse of trees there along the shore.


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[Assistant] Every step felt familiar to her, and the path seemed obvious. A few moments after arriving, she was standing over a hollow stump. The shawls were inside.


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[Assistant] After the authorities were led to the hidden shawls, Clifford was arrested. He confessed to the murders of his wife and daughter a short while later, and the subsequent trial put him in jail for the rest of his life. Mrs. Marvin, of course, was the most significant witness in the courtroom.


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[Assistant] Sometimes the thing you're looking for is lost in a dream. And sometimes, if you're lucky, you'll find it there as well.


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


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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 fantastic seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.


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[Assistant] I also make two other podcasts. Aaron Manke's cabinet of curiosities.


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


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


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[Assistant] She was the 15th child of the Empress Maria Theresa and was only gifted with the prize roll of Dauphine of France thanks to random happenstance, an unlikely circumstance befalling her older sisters. Her education, up until that last minute betrothal, had been minimal.


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[Assistant] But even if she wasn't studious, she was beautiful and charming and agreeable. She would be happy in France, marrying the awkward young prince, only a few months her senior.


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[Assistant] But even if she wasn't, her happiness wasn't the point. She was a pawn to secure an alliance between Austria and France.


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[Assistant] Twenty-two years after she became a French princess, after two decades of decadence in the most cultured and luxurious palace in the world,


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[Assistant] Marie Antoinette was alone in a cell in the heart of Paris with mobs outside calling for her head to join that of her husband and her friends in the guillotine.


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[Assistant] Marie Antoinette's prison cell at the Conciergerie was not a place of warmth and kindness, but the jail keeper, Madame Richard, tried to make the woman who had once lived in a palace comfortable.


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[Assistant] Madame Richard, who ran the Conciergerie with her husband.


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[Assistant] had watched the queen hang a small golden watch on the wall of her cell.


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[Assistant] The only bit of adornment in the dark room where the walls dripped and moaning could be heard from all hours of the night.


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[Assistant] It was a gift from long ago from her mother, the Empress Maria Therese.


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[Assistant] Madame Richard had also watched the guards confiscate the watch five days later.


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[Assistant] The queen was mostly quiet after that. Her hands stayed in her laps.


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[Assistant] She thanked the guards when they brought her food and thanked Madame Richard when the jailer brought fresh flowers to the cell before those two were banned.


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[Assistant] One afternoon, to try to cheer up the queen, Madame Richard brought her own son to the prison.


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[Assistant] Marie Antoinette had always famously loved children. She once stopped her carriage to help a poor boy on the street, paying for his boarding and education. She had clutched her own children to her so tightly and for so long that Versailles had wagged their tongues at her overindulgence.


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[Assistant] When Madame Richard's son, Fanfan, arrived at the Conciergerie, Marie Antoinette burst into tears. For the first time in weeks, her voice rose above a whisper. She wailed while hugging the boy, pulling her arms tighter and tighter around him. It was a cry of misery.


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[Assistant] Fan Fan was seven at the time, the same age as Marie Antoinette's son, Louis Charles, imprisoned somewhere far away, being re-educated by revolutionaries.


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[Assistant] Six months prior, Marie Antoinette's family had all been together for what would be the last time. It was the night before the former King Louis XVI's execution and the man, now called Louis Capet, was permitted one last meal.


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[Assistant] Marie Antoinette and Louis' younger sister Elizabeth cried the entire evening while the children, a boy and a girl, looked up at their stoic father with wide, watery eyes. Promise me, the once king said to his children, that you will not seek revenge for those who do this to me. Little Louis Charles nodded his head. Marie Antoinette would not stop her weeping.


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[Assistant] She and her husband had been married for 23 years. Louis XVI had never taken a mistress.


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[Assistant] But I was far too late to try to imagine how things might have been different.


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[Assistant] Louis XVI had been sentenced to death and his head would be on the guillotine the next morning.


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[Assistant] To stop his wife and his sister and his children from crying, Louis promised that he would see them tomorrow morning. That he would say one final goodbye.


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[Assistant] This was just good night. We'll say goodbye tomorrow morning. He lied.


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[Assistant] The next morning, Marie Antoinette, now called the Widow Capet, was taken to a new prison cell.


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[Assistant] He was a 34-year-old Scottish soldier, but his adventures had taken him all over South and Central America, where he'd become friends with King George Frederick Augustus of the Mosquito Coast. And this ruler had gifted him with a kingdom of his own.


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[Assistant] He said his kingdom was rich with resources. The rivers teamed with gold and the soil was so fertile that farmers could bring in multiple harvests each year. It was beautiful and exotic and bigger than whales. He just needed investors to help him develop those resources and settlers to make it happen. And people signed up.


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[Assistant] In September of 1822, seven ships left for the kingdom of Poyas. There were hundreds of settlers on board and hundreds of thousands of pounds in MacGregor's pocket. But when they arrived two months later, they found nothing that MacGregor had promised them.


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[Assistant] There was no one waiting for them. No buildings, no crops, not even a port for their ships.


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[Assistant] Hundreds of settlers got off the ships and tried to make the best of it, but two thirds of them died in the process.