In celebration of the Halloween episode, we should probably stay with something light and airy as far as openers go.
So get ready for it.
Mountain goats in Washington had to be airlifted to a new home after developing a taste for human urine and sweat.
I wasn't gonna do this, but there's points in this particular news article, which I really like.
That's a nice feature of an internet article to have.
It has all the important points of the article laid out for you first in bullet points.
And I think they're just a great feature, so I am gonna read them out to you.
First bullet point.
Mountain goats at Olympic National Park developed a taste for human urine and sweat.
Second bullet point.
Rangers captured, blindfolded, and airlifted 114 goats to a new home.
Third bullet point.
Mountain goats are not native to the area and pose a threat to natural vegetation.
This leaves me wanting more because that just seems like an ambiguous thing to have in there.
And fourth and last, a Forest Service spokesman told AP they all seem to be doing very well, which is very nice.
I'm happy that they put that in there.
So mountain goats at Olympic National Park in Washington state have developed such a taste for human urine and sweat that they had to be blindfolded and airlifted to a new home.
Mountain goats are not native to the area and pose a threat to the natural vegetation.
This leads me to wonder who put them there.
Is this a national park?
They're in a national park.
Wouldn't you think they don't just put animals that are not native to a location in a national park, do they?
No, but they can migrate, especially with changing climate.
Things are moving into areas that weren't usually there.
Okay, and they do like mountains.
So maybe they're like, look at that mountain over there.
It looks like it's full of pee and sweat.
So they are considered now a nuisance along heavily used trails.
Well, not now because they've now been airlifted out.
It seems extreme to be airlifted out, but okay.
Since they seek out salt and minerals from human urine and sweat on clothing, according to officials, their taste for urine and sweat has started to cause issues.
And they've learned not to be afraid of people.
And they've made the connection of, hmm, I can get salt from people.
That's a goat thinking right there.
That's what I just reenacted.
Oh, here. This answers my question.
The goats were introduced to the area over a century ago before it was a national park.
Over time, they had become aggressive.
Wow. In 2010, a hiker bled to death after being attacked by a goat.
Oh, my God.
This is taking me on a wild ride.
Total of 114 goats were captured and relocated during a two week operation, according to CBS News Denver.
It's estimated anywhere between 275 and 325 goats that can't be wrangled by Rangers will be shot and killed.
Oh, my God.
So far, they all seem to be doing well, not the ones that have been shot and killed.
Fulton Whitworth.
The ones that have survived are surviving quite well.
That just ended on a horrible note.
That was the end of the article.
Oh, no.
Huh.
Well, this truly sets my perspective of the goat man and what he was truly trying to get out of his victims in a whole new light.
And how did they develop the taste for the urine?
That's also a question I wanted.
My guess is the hikers just, you know, pissing on the side of the hiking trails.
And how would they know?
Oh, OK, they go seeking that out.
They weren't like looking for people peeing in the bushes.
And they put two and two together.
And then therefore they wanted blood.
Yes.
Or, you know, they're just trying to, like, hit ram the humans in their bladders to make them release it.
Yes, so that they piss themselves.
Yes.
OK, well, that article took a turn for the worse.
I'm sorry for that, everyone.
But I'm sure this episode will redeem itself.
Let's see. Let's get into it.
Let's try.
From the unexplained to the mundane.
Join us on our journey to the fringe.
Hello and welcome to Journey to the Fringe.
Now a chain letter podcast.
So if you don't share this with seven of your friends, a plague shall be cast upon your house.
If you do share, I don't know what will happen.
But like, I don't know.
Maybe you'll get like 20 bucks or something.
Can't guarantee that and your house still may get a plague.
I don't know. It's trying times.
We are your chain hosts, Taylor and Chelsea, here today fulfilling our seasonal obligations of doing a Halloween creature feature.
This year, we have gone with some fairly generic Halloween staples for our creatures to talk about.
I think in this one, we're going to do a bit more history of these creatures and maybe possible historical sightings.
That's at least what I have.
I don't know about you, Chelsea.
Maybe I think I have a historical sighting or two.
OK.
Today, we focus on the vampiric, the headless horseman varietal and, of course, the wolfman type creatures.
I think that is, in fact, the order that we're going to go through this episode just so that we can alternate.
And I think this is going to be a long one.
So I'm just going to get right into it.
We're going to start right with vampires.
Of course, I think we all know at least the vampire that we think of today feeds on the blood of living creatures to stop its own body from decomposing.
The image generally thought of is a refined, pale skinned vampire.
Of course, that's not what it's always been.
In fact, this dates pretty far back, all the way back to 1992 when Keanu Reeves appeared in the film Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Doesn't happen before that.
Strangely enough.
1992 is such a long time ago anyway.
I know.
Yeah, who can even remember that?
Yeah, exactly.
Strangely enough, based on a book by Bram Stoker, but nobody knows who that is.
That name has been lost to time.
Same with the book.
But in a more serious note, let's keep going with it.
The idea of a vampire dates back further than really our dating system work.
So you can't really put a date on how old these myths are.
I thought it was 92.
It might in fact not be.
In fact, it might go back further.
Okay.
The original, some sort of like semblance of what we understand a vampire to be.
It draws its roots from the Balkan area of Eastern Europe where legends began, what was described as a bloated dark or ready complexion, corpse feeding on blood.
Many attribute belief in vampires to a combination of Slavic spiritualism and early ignorance of the body's decomposition cycle after death.
Now in pre-industrial Slavic societies, it was believed that a person's spirit lingered for 40 days after death.
Suicide victims, suspected witches, evil beings, and even unbaptized children were thought to have unclean spirits.
And a vampire, according to this belief, was the manifestation of an unclean spirit possessing a decomposing body.
So it's that 40 day window where a spirit can take over those bodies.
Interesting.
When the body of a suspected vampire was disinterred, it would sometimes look like it hadn't decomposed at all.
Hair, teeth, and fingernails would appear to be growing.
And as if it had been gorging on blood due to its ready complexion, bloated body and blood seeping from the nose and mouth.
A lot of that has to do with decomposition rates.
We know a lot more about how the body decomposes these days.
So we know a lot of these things that they look at for suspected vampirism is absolutely not true in the slightest and is just parts of natural features of a body decomposing.
Blood coming out of the nose is natural when you're dead?
Yeah, I believe it comes up later.
If it doesn't, I will speak on it now.
It's basically the rotting of the organs inside.
Oh, God.
Yeah, coming out through the orifices in the face.
So note to self, if I ever see that in a dead body, don't freak out.
It's totally natural.
Yeah.
Body decomposition rate depends on factors like the temperature and the soil composition.
And that dead flesh loses fluids, causing it to pull back and expose the roots of hair, teeth and nails.
So that's why it looks like things are still growing and it's still very much alive.
And gases from decomposition accumulate in the torso, making the body look bloated and also forces blood to ooze from the mouth and nose, from the decomposition of organs.
I guess this is also before I was just about to call it exterminating.
What is it when they take the like formaldehyde and stuff?
Oh, not exhuming.
Yeah, I was thinking basically body pres...
OK, yeah.
But yeah, preserving the body.
Yeah, so way before that, obviously.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
These are just you're putting bodies in the ground.
OK.
Now, common beliefs about vampires range wildly depending on where you're really looking at it.
But very rarely, actually, was it something they are active at night, but they're not necessarily vulnerable to sunlight.
That's something that happens in a more modern look at what a vampire is.
However, key to fighting vampires are garlic, crucifixes and holy water.
Those have always been common devices for warding off vampires.
It's also commonly believed that driving a wooden stake into the body would release the evil spirit,
with decapitation also being a way to hasten the evil spirits departure.
Probably also lessens the bloat so they would immediately see a difference.
Yes, that and it releases a sound.
So it sounds like they've actually defeated.
Oh, yeah, this is disturbing.
But yeah, that would make sense.
OK. And they'd be like, see, he was a vampire.
Oh, and also just one thing.
I forgot to put it in here, but since we're talking about things that ward off vampires,
that common idea that vampires don't have a reflection.
So it's always been commonly thought that silver could ward off vampires because silver is a pure metal that has some antiseptic qualities.
Yes. And old mirrors were actually made of silver.
Ah, yes. And that's why?
That's why they actually didn't have reflections, whereas modern day mirrors actually do not use silver.
So not something that actually should happen anymore.
And founded.
Vampire should, in fact, reflect.
I'm learning so much.
I thought it was because they didn't have souls, so you couldn't see them.
OK, that's what's reflecting back at you. Sure.
I could have just made that up.
I'm not sure I actually read that anywhere.
Yeah, it's your soul that you're seeing in the mirror.
Yeah. And also, that does mean that there are no vampires in space because we do look up at them with technically mirrored telescopes.
But those mirrored telescopes are not using silver. So we would see the vampires if they were up there.
OK, good point.
Just so that you are feeling OK about that.
Space is not filled with vampires.
Yes. There are many cases that are very actually well documented across Europe of suspected vampires.
And we're going to read through a couple of them just to get you in this creepy mindset.
We're going to start with one Yuri Granda.
He is recorded to have lived in a small Istrian village called Kringa during the 17th century.
Istria is in Croatia, so modern day Croatia.
It seems that little is known about Granda's life and he may have been just an ordinary villager prior to his death.
Some sources claim that he was a nasty character.
In 1656, Granda died and it is said that he had been buried in the local cemetery by the village priest, Father Giorgio.
Shortly after Granda's burial, however, it was reported by the local population that the deceased
had been wandering around the village and even knocking on the doors of certain houses.
The people living in the countryside of the Istrian peninsula believed in a type of vampire known as Strigoi.
Strigoi is an Eastern European version of a vampire.
They have a few more powers. They can turn into different animals as well as they have a propensity to sleep with women.
So they're all over the map. They're a little crazier.
It was this firm belief in the nefarious activities of the Strigoi that caused fear amongst the villagers,
causing them to seek out the creature in order to kill it.
In the case of Yuri Grando, the vampire is said to have terrorized his village for 16 years before action was taken against him.
In 1672, the mayor of the village, Miho Raddadek, gathered a group of brave young men to hunt Grando down and put an end to his reign of terror.
The men, and I'd love to think of this as like a three stooges type of like endeavor with nine men.
Like the way it goes about, just listen.
The men, nine in total, went to the local cemetery and opened Grando's grave.
The men are said to have seen that the dead man's body was still intact, which was taken as a sign of vampirism.
In one version of the story, the men fled in fear, but they rallied together and led by the mayor went back to Grando's grave.
Next, the men, or the priest, who was one of the nine, tried to get rid of the vampire by invoking the name of Jesus Christ.
This seemed to be of no avail.
The group then tried to stab the vampire in the stomach with a wooden stake.
This too did not work as the stake could not pierce through its target.
Finally, one of the men said to be named Stephen Milasic in one source, beheaded Grando with an axe.
The vampire is said to have given out a loud cry and blood gushed forth from the neck.
The men then covered the grave again and that was the end of Yuri Grando.
Funny enough, in a way, he didn't really die off at that time.
In 2006, it was reported that efforts were being made by the people of Kringa to resurrect the legend of Yuri Grando for some modern day villagers.
The vampire is viewed not as a source of fear, and more as a source of income as they hope to use his story as a means of attracting tourists to the village.
Kind of like playing out the trial to kill a mockingbird, but in a more barbaric way.
That's hilarious, where they're just combing the records being like, what's good to bring back to bring tourists in?
Surprisingly enough, these views, at least to some groups, still live on in the Balkans, and especially with Strigoi.
In February of 2004, a woman in the village of Maratino de Su in Dolce County revealed that she had been visited by her late uncle, a 76-year-old Romanian man named Peter Toma, who had died in December the previous year, fearing the deceased might have been a Strigoi.
The woman's brother-in-law, Giorgia Marinescu, organized a vampire hunting group made up of several family members.
After drinking some alcohol, they dug up the coffin of Peter Toma, then made an incision in the chest and tore the heart out.
After removal of the heart, the body was burned and the ashes were mixed in water and drunk by Toma's niece, believing that it would put an end to the haunting.
Dolce County police later arrested six of the family members who participated in the ritual, charging them with disturbing the peace of the dead.
I didn't even know that was a crime. That may be my new favorite crime, in fact.
Disturbing the peace of the dead?
Yeah.
They're dead, let them rest. Let them be in peace.
They were sentenced to six months' imprisonment in order to pay damages to the family of the deceased.
Since then, in the nearby village of Amaristi, Dissu, people drive a fire-hardened stake through the heart of the belly of the dead as a preventative measure.
This one I find fairly interesting, as it's like somebody who's sent there for kind of a scientific point of view doing this view, but it's also 1731.
So like the best scientific view you can get in the 1700s.
In late 1731, Austro-Hungarian regimental field surgeon Johannes Lueckinger journeyed to the Serbian village of Medvegje.
It's about 120 miles from Kisiljevo on the Ottoman border.
He was sent to investigate a series of mysterious deaths.
The village suspected a vampire zero, so the original vampire, was an Albanian man named Arnud Paola.
When he was alive, Paola claimed he had been bitten by a vampire, but he protected himself by eating dirt from its tomb and cleansing himself with its blood.
Unfortunately, this plan still left him mortal and he fell off a haywagon and broke his neck, dying.
40 days after his demise, four villagers declared that the deceased Paoli had returned to torment them, and those four promptly expired.
The local elders exhumed Paola's corpse and found it complete and incorrupt, while completely fresh blood flowed from its eyes, ears, and nose.
Satisfied by this evidence, the locals drove a stake through the torso, whereupon he let out a noticeable groan and bled copiously.
All was peaceful for around five years.
Unfortunately, Paola the vampire had also sucked on calves during his rampage.
As the contaminated cattle matured and were slaughtered, those who consumed the meat also became infected, resulting in as many as 17 new vampires.
An expert in contagious diseases, Flukinger, systematically ordered exhumation and conducted autopsies on all the suspects.
In the interest of preventing an epidemic and further panic in the village, he sought out a scientific explanation for all the sudden deaths and the apparent anomalies in the decomposition.
Okay, what'd he find?
He couldn't find any evidence of known diseases.
Folk hypotheses trumped science as the most plausible diagnosis.
Flukinger classified each of the corpses before him as either decomposing or uncorrupted.
Given his imperial loyalties, it's not surprising he tended to label Turks or other peasants as vampires and had them dealt with in the traditional manner.
Those from wealthier Hungarian families, however, like the wife and new more baby of the haddock, who also died at that time, were frequently reinterred in consecrated ground.
In 1732, Flukinger's report, then titled Seen and Reported, ignited another furor and debate raged in scholarly, religious, and court circles regarding the nature of the so-called vampire epidemic.
The issue wasn't laid to rest until 1746 when Vatican scholar Dom Augustine Kalmet concluded in his dissertation Sir Le Apparitions that,
scripture aside, nobody was rising from the grave.
He cross-fiked vampires as a creature of imagination rather than immediate threat, but this did lead to changes in cemetery reform throughout much of Europe.
So more how you actually had to store bodies.
And what was the change they made?
It was more just like standardizing how deep I didn't actually read.
There was an entire act on like cemetery reform, which I just kind of found too boring for Halloween episode.
Oh, OK.
It mostly centered around France.
If you want to read more, go read more about cemetery reform in the 1700s in France.
I could not find myself the power to actually Google that term.
It was just too boring.
The material reform?
France 1700s.
And this one happens on the US side of the Atlantic.
During the 18th and 19th century, New England was in the grips of a terrible tuberculosis epidemic.
During the 19th century, this disease was the leading cause of death in the eastern United States,
accounting for nearly 25% of all deaths.
And sorry, I should say this comes from a paper written by Michael E. Bell.
It's the synopsis of beginning.
The articles entitled Vampires and Death in New England 1784 to 1892.
Despite an abundance of cures offered by eclectic mix of practitioners,
a diagnosis of consumption as pulmonary tuberculosis was then called was the equivalent of a death sentence.
Not willing to simply watch as one after another, their family members died,
some New Englanders resorted to an old folk remedy whose roots surely must rest in Europe,
called vampirism by outsiders.
This remedy required exhuming the bodies of deceased relatives and checking them from natural signs,
such as fresh blood in the heart.
This implicit belief was that one of the relatives was not completely dead
and was maintaining some semblance of life by draining the vital force from living relatives.
All of the more than 20 cases documented in New England occurred in areas outside of the
Puritan heartlands, Massachusetts and contiguous Connecticut.
Fringe areas that were separatists, tolerant or unspecified in terms of religious affiliation.
Perhaps surprisingly, from 85 to 90% of white New Englanders of this area were unchurched,
many practicing various hybrid religions that have been classified as folk in the sense that
they were unofficial combinations of Christian beliefs and various folk practices of the kind,
often disparagingly referred to as superstitions.
Yeah, I just thought that was interesting to include the fact that tuberculosis,
one of the cures was to check back to see if any of your previously deceased relatives
had been sapping your lifeblood as a vampire from beyond the grave by checking their heart for blood
and having over 20 documented cases in the US.
I have a question.
In all of these stories, they're digging up people to check for like fresh blood in the heart or like
bloat or like blood and they see it and they're like, oh my God, a vampire.
Are they digging up other bodies in which this stuff was not present or were they only?
No, they would definitely be digging up other bodies for this purpose as well.
You just wouldn't hear those stories because it's not that exciting to say we checked this body
and it was just a skeleton.
So it's not him.
In different stages of decomposition, obviously.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, like there wasn't a lot of standardization in tooming somebody back in the day.
So it actually would be easy for some bodies to just check because like after a big rainstorm
sometimes like the coffins will float up and just come to the surface.
So it would look like that person would also be a vampire trying to escape.
It would look like that when that back in the day when I felt this meant you were a vampire.
So those are these old stories of vampires or at least some of the things that inspire
the idea of a vampire.
The vampire that we know and see in modern society like Blade, specifically Blade,
would be inspired by the charismatic and sophisticated vampires of a story written in
1819 called The Vampire by John Pulidori.
Of course, this being our show, vampire is not spelt the way you would expect it.
There's a why in there, probably where you'd expect it.
The story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early
19th century.
Of course, then it is outdone by Bram Stroker's Dracula in 1897, which became the quintessential
vampire novel and really where we get all of our ideas of what a modern day vampire is.
Unfortunately, you don't really get sightings of modern day vampires because they're just
a work of fiction that was made up by Bram Stroker.
Plus, we have a lot more science of dead bodies.
Yeah.
And we also do that thing that neither of us can remember what it's called.
You die and they take your organs out and stuff like that.
Mummify.
Yeah.
And then they put you in a pyramid to be sent off to the-
With your treasures.
I don't know.
Yeah.
To the reeds or wherever it is with the hippo god that weighs your heart.
Exactly.
And then sometimes you set a curse because you've done very bad things and then you come
back thousands and thousands of years later to destroy humanity.
That is my plan.
Exactly.
That way you don't have to wait at will because you're coming back for it.
Yeah, exactly.
But that is just an overview of what a vampire is, Chelsea, if you want to move on to the
next of our subjects.
That was pretty good.
I learned a lot of new- basically all new things, except for how you spell vampire.
Did already know that one.
Okay, Headless Horseman.
That's the next one.
Oh, sorry.
You know what?
I do want to add one thing.
Okay, add it.
During this, I always heard that Dracula, the main character of Bram Stroker's novel,
was inspired by Vlad the Impaler, who's a-
Yeah.
A 15th century, I believe, famous Romanian leader known for impaling his victims on spikes
and then putting them up into a forest for people to see and then not want to fight him.
So I was like, why is he actually usually thought of as like Dracula?
Oh, it's because his last name was Dracula.
Oh.
He's directly inspired.
Vlad Dracula.
Yeah, Vlad Dracula III.
That is a strong last name.
Does that exist still?
I wonder.
I don't think so.
It does mean dragon.
I like that.
Also a great last name, very strong.
Dragon, I prefer Dracula.
Huh, something to think about.
Okay, can I shout this?
Sure.
Headless Horseman.
Okay, this one is made famous by Ichabod.
Did you know that the legend actually goes back way further than Ichabod?
And you know what?
I said Ichabod thinking that it was just the Disney movie that had Ichabod,
but Ichabod is actually the guy in the poem, The Headless Horseman,
which I will talk about in one second.
Oh, I wrote that intro before I wrote that portion of the story.
Let's start with what this cult classic is based on,
which is the American version of the legend,
which is The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving.
It's a short story that I just mentioned with Ichabod in it.
I really thought it was the Disney movie.
The story begins in Sleepy Hollow, New York,
during the American Revolutionary War.
Traditional folklore states that the horseman was a Hycian trooper,
which is a German soldier who served as auxiliaries to the British army
during the American Revolutionary War, and the horseman was killed October 1776.
It's way over my head as far as war stuff goes.
So he was decapitated by an American cannonball,
and shattered remains of his head were left on the battlefield
while his comrades hastily carried his body away.
Eventually they buried him in the cemetery of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow,
from which he rises as a headless horseman ghost, furiously seeking his lost head,
and wielding a jack-o-lantern as temporary replacement for his head or a weapon.
Some versions have him prefer to be on his rampage during Halloween,
around the time he was killed.
I am also assuming the reasoning for his jack-o-lantern.
That is the shortest summary I could do of it.
Obviously I wasn't going to get full into the short story of Sleepy Hollow.
You could go read it, you could go watch the Disney version,
which I just watched and obviously based everything that I know about the headless horseman on.
This short story by Irving was a part of a collection of short stories entitled
The Sketchbook of Jeffrey Crayon.
There's also, just so people aren't confused,
I don't think the Johnny Depp version is Disney,
but there is the Johnny Depp version too.
I believe it's just called Sleepy Hollow.
Yes. I don't know if it is.
No, I think Tim Burton did it.
I don't know if it's Disney or not.
Yeah, guys, last name, it's Crayon in the title.
Anyhow, he wrote the short story collection during a tour in Europe,
so parts of this tale can be traced back to European origins.
There are many, many works cited as being inspiration to these works by Irving,
contributing to the legend of Sleepy Hollow,
including The Wild Hunt, which we talked about in one of our Christmas episodes
and also inspired Santa, so the correlation there is weird.
Rather than talk about random inspirations that seemingly have no tie,
but do have a tie to the headless horseman,
I chose to focus on those that seemingly have a large tie to the headless horseman
and that I just enjoyed a lot more because I'm talking about it here
and I make the decisions.
Where does the legend originate from?
Kind of.
Other than, you know, the Americanized version that we know and love today.
Well, if I had to guess, I didn't know it was outside of America, to be honest,
and also I didn't give it much thought.
And I also shouldn't be guessing this because I've also now written this episode.
If you were to guess, Taylor, where would you think this
stories I'm going to be telling originate from?
I'm going to say Germany, just because the original headless horseman guy was German.
That's a good guess.
It's actually Ireland and Scotland.
Oh, of course.
I'm going to start first with the Scottish origin tale of the headless horseman,
and then I'll do the Irish one, because again, it's my choice.
I make the decisions here and I just wanted to end with the Irish one.
Or the Scottish.
During the 1300s, two dominant branches of the same clan existed,
which apparently was totally normal back then in relation to the story
McLean of Duart and McLean of Lock Bowie, who were headed by two brothers
and Lachlan the Willy controlled the stronger McLeans of Duart.
Wait, if you're following me, Lachlan the Willy.
Yeah.
OK, I just wanted to make sure that that was right.
It's Scotland, of course.
That's a totally normal.
Is that a person or just something?
Is it just the Willy?
It's like it's like Scott.
OK.
Ewan McLean of the McLean clan.
Not the McLean clan.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's McLean, not McLean, who was of the non-dominant clad, had a small head,
and he's actually a real guy, Ewan.
Now, eventually there is a sword fight that he is involved in,
and how this comes about varies by legend.
Night prior to battle, Ewan has an encounter with either a fairy folk
or a witch, depending on which legend you read out in the forest.
I actually put two kind of encounters just to like kind of set the mood for you here.
The first one with the witch, the witch used her foresight to tell Ewan of an omen
to watch out for, to know what his faith would be.
The omen was that if Ewan's wife brought him and his men food and drink before the battle,
unasked, Clan McLean would be successful.
If she had to be asked to serve refreshments,
then that would be a sign of his clan's failure in battle.
This prediction sent a shiver down Ewan's spine, and his wife was not the most agreeable woman.
For the fairy folk, the tale goes like this.
On the eve of the battle, Ewan took a walk through a nearby wood.
As he approached the stream that runs through the woods,
to Ewan's astonishment he spotted a washerwoman sitting at the ford of the river.
Woman is hunched over with long hair and large drooping breasts.
It gets better.
She washes clothes that are not dirty and as she does blood runs from them and into the stream.
Washerwoman is not mortal, one of the fairy folk known as Bean Negi and a bad omen to those who
see her.
Ewan knew what he had to do and sneaks up behind her.
She is singing a lament to all those soldiers who have fallen in battle.
It takes a little bit of a weirder turn here, viewer discretion advised.
Ewan took her breasts in his mouth and suckles like a baby.
He tells her that he is her firstborn. To this she grants him a wish.
That's gotta be hard with a breast in your mouth.
Yes and also Scotland, am I right?
They're already batten with a handicap.
Ewan not very brightly asked what the outcome of the battle would be.
That's his wish.
I'm your first son, what's the outcome of the battle gonna be?
Like it's a wish.
He wouldn't ask to win it, like that would be my fucking wish.
It's not what is the outcome of the battle going to be.
Anyhow, she replies, if tomorrow morning you are given butter with your porridge without asking,
then you will be victorious.
Ewan is angry at this answer and curses the washerwoman.
Maybe he should have asked for a different wish, like jeez.
Just straight up asked to win.
Also that's very Nisa of the porridge.
Oh it is.
This is the fairy folk one.
Ah, I didn't put that together but you're right.
He's angry at the answer and curses the washerwoman and in bad temper goes back to the cat.
That's just stupidity.
It is not a good idea to curse at the washerwoman.
No, because she didn't do anything.
He got his wish.
Well not only that, like he did so many things to like wrong, like sexual assaults.
Like rape, first informals.
Yeah I was just gonna say sexual assault for one and then just not using his brain.
So I guess all in all the outcome is the same and the end result is based on whether he gets food
without asking.
So I could have saved you all there reading you that but I couldn't have just not read
the fairy folk one and then I had to read the other one for reasons unsaid.
It's a not show favouritism I understand.
Except I have already said multiple times the favouritism that happened in this work of art.
But let's move to the next point.
Again, in every single scenario the nourishment is not brought without asking and Ewan knows his
faith however still courageously goes to battle.
He dies in battle via differing methods.
My favourite was the blow to the head that slices only the top of his skull off and he rides away
and then dies.
Interesting one.
The spirit of Ewan still appears wearing a green cape that he wore in battle and in the
darkest of nights the hooves of his loyal steed can be heard.
Ewan is a guardian of his descendants and it is known that if his spirit of Ewan is seen or heard
a death in the family is imminent and that this will escort his family to the other side.
Oh he's a banshee now.
Okay.
Pretty much yeah but only to his specific bloodline.
Yeah that's how it usually works with banshees.
Oh really?
Yeah.
It's the losing bloodline by the way.
He can be recognized by his small head obviously.
Man you understand like he wasn't the smartest guy but he had so many opportunities to win
that battle first by just asking for the wish if the fairy one was right.
Yeah.
Or just taking proactive steps and either getting your porridge ready yourself.
Oh that is true.
Or serving those people yourself.
Simple as that.
That's true and that would have assured his victory.
There is one other variation.
Ewan is the son of the chieftain and is ready to take his father's place as head of the clan
mclean and a bloody battle within the family occurs.
Here Ewan is beheaded by one of his father's men and his horse is killed along with him.
I'm sad for the horse. So much animal death in this episode.
This take of Ewan's afterlife is a bit more sinister as his headless and restless spirit
haunts the land of Scotland tormenting the lives of his living descendants and innocent bystanders.
Ewan's spirit is bound to no particular area and the sounds of disembodied hooves make the
living's blood run cold.
So this is very much still a living thing alive and well in Scotland of Ewan.
He was a real guy.
I could even go on and they would like show where he came from in the areas of Scotland
where this all happened.
Oh yeah they show you in like the maps and like oh this is his family crest and like this is his
family's kilt pattern things like that.
Yeah they really like that there.
So that's Scotland.
It's a little bit weird but now with that out of the way we can move on to Ireland which I
personally not to create a bias going into this I quite was taken with this one.
In Ireland the Dullahan aka Darkman is a headless demonic fairy usually riding a black horse and
carrying his head under his arm and this is actually so creepy in comparison to what I know
and love as the Disney cartoon.
This story I'm about to regale you with it is so much better.
He is said to be the embodiment of the Celtic god Cromdubi.
This handsome fellow usually has a hideous grin that touches both sides of his head and his eyes
are constantly moving about and can see across the countryside even during the darkest nights.
One especially disturbing detail is that his head is said to have the color and consistency
of moldy cheese.
So people are touching it.
Now that you say that it makes me think they might also be tasting it.
Yeah.
And it's such an interesting observation of one.
Have you ever made an observation like that before other than Recliat cheese?
Not about cheese.
No, I don't think so.
Not even about cheese.
I would never describe something I've never tasted or something that you wouldn't normally
taste as having a consistency of some odd food.
Like that just seems out of place.
Look at that guy's mac and cheese face.
Okay.
The uranium has both the consistency and the smell of macaroni.
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
So the Dullahan wields a whip made from a human corpse's spine, which is fucking terrifying.
That is a metal album right there.
It is.
Like that is the most metal and terrifying thing I've never heard of that detail before.
I really think Disney should have strongly considered keeping that detail.
Obviously, I refer back to Disney a lot for this.
This is my whole Liz Horsman reference.
Another version of the Irish legend, the Dullahan drives a black carriage,
which is adorned with funeral objects.
It has candles in skulls to light the way.
The spokes of the wheels are made from thigh bones and the wagon's covering is made from
a worm chewed pal or dried human skin.
He roams the lands of Ireland looking for victims of those lives he intends to take.
The Dullahan stops riding a death occurs.
So when he stops, he calls out a name, which is believed to draw the soul away from the
person's body, at which point the named person immediately dies.
I know what you're thinking after all this.
How am I ever going to rid myself of the fear of running into the Dullahan now?
All my friends, I will help you.
Can't think of anything I want in return, so you're off the hook this time.
You may carry around a golden object.
It is said that it will force the Dullahan to disappear.
And that's it.
He's not as cool as Baron Samedi, but he's almost as cool.
He's a little more badass than Baron Samedi.
Like the Baron seems like somebody you want to hang out with.
He's pretty chill.
Like he takes rum.
This guy just seems like you can't even give him anything to help you.
You're fucked if you see him.
Like get the fuck out of there.
He is wielding a human spine.
Well, somebody got close enough to taste his head.
So I don't think it's like a death sentence per se.
You think they're like, that is moldy cheese.
I knew it just from looking at you.
That was moldy cheese.
But I had to taste it to confirm.
Yeah, like there's just a couple really specific details in the story that I was a big
fan of for the Dullahan.
And that's it.
That's what I got for this in as short as I could make this.
Which lets us move to our third and final creature, which are werewolves.
Now you may be asking yourself a question like I have it at various points in my life.
Why werewolves?
Why not?
Why wolves or when wolves or how wolves?
It's because it is a human wearing wolf.
Simple as that.
No, where actually comes from Old English, which comes from ancient Nordic.
Where means man.
So it literally translates to man wolf.
That is why werewolf, despite the fact we know where sometimes.
Sometimes.
But this well predates English really.
We can trace this all the way back to ancient Creek.
There are references to men changing into wolves.
The weird thing is it's really hard to separate out werewolf from like the rest of things
that just turn into other animals, shapeshifters like the skinwalkers, say.
Those would be distinctly two different things though, right?
It's actually hard to say.
Because they come from two different cultures, right?
Well, they do, but werewolves come from many different cultures as well.
It's really hard to say.
Like if we're talking about werewolves, where the cutoff point is, is this is where werewolves
are and these things are outside of it.
Okay.
I get what you're saying.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
That's a fair point.
Herodotus wrote about what may be considered werewolves way back in the day.
The day being maybe a Wednesday, although Wednesdays probably didn't exist at that time.
So it might not have been a Wednesday or maybe they were all Wednesdays.
I don't know.
He wrote that Neary, a tribe he places on the northeast of Scythia, were all transformed
into wolves once every year for several days and then changed back to their human shape.
There's also a very famous Greek myth of Lycan, who is the son of Pelasgus.
And he angered the god Zeus when he served him a meal made from the remains of a sacrificed boy.
As punishment, the enraged Zeus turned Lycan and his sons into wolves,
which is where we actually get the term Lycanthropy,
which is generally like the more scientific term people use for werewolves.
Really?
Yeah.
Canthropy is the scientific term for turning into a wolf.
Yeah.
It doesn't mean that people actually turn into wolves.
It's just if you're trying to be more fancy about it, that's what you call it.
I do like that.
Lycan is Latin for wolf.
I'm going to put that in my bio.
Early Christians authors also mentioned werewolves in the city of God.
Augustine of Hippo explains that it is very generally believed that by certain witches
spells men may be turned into wolves.
Physical metamorphosis was also mentioned in the Capitulatum Episcopi,
attributed the council of Ancyra in the fourth century, which became the church's doctrinal
text in the relation to magic witches and transformations such as those of werewolves.
The Capitulatum Episcopi states that whoever believes that anything can be transformed into
another species or likeness, except by God himself, is beyond doubt an infidel.
In works of Roman writers werewolves often receive the name Verus Fellus, turnskins.
Augustine instead uses the phrase in lupum fuici mutatum,
changed in the form of a wolf to describe the physical metamorphosis of werewolves,
which is similar to phrases used in the medieval period.
Turnskins.
Werewolves were said in European folklore to bear telltale signs even in their human form.
These include the meeting of both eyebrows in the middle at the bridge of the nose,
the curved fingernails, low set ears, and a swinging stride.
So, you know, just keep your eye out for things like that.
Shit.
And I actually like this one.
One method of identifying a werewolf in its human form was to cut the flesh of the accused
under the pretense that the fur would be seen within the wound.
Oh my God.
Did this ever happen for real?
Well, we're going to talk a bit.
I'm almost there.
Okay.
A Russian superstition recalls a werewolf can be recognized by bristles under the tongue,
and the appearance of a werewolf in its animal form varies from culture to culture,
though in most it is commonly portrayed as being indistinguishable from ordinary wolves,
save for the fact that it does not have a tail, is often larger and retains human eyes and a voice.
According to some Swedish accounts, the werewolf could be distinguished from a regular wolf by
the fact that it would run on three legs, stretching the fourth leg out backwards to look like a tail.
One thing most all European werewolves are known for is the habit of devouring
recently buried corpses, a trait that is documented extensively particularly in
a famous psychological book, Anal Medico Psychologique in the 19th century.
About wolves devouring.
Yeah.
Body. Okay.
That's like a weird thing to put in that book, but...
Before the end of the 19th century, the Greeks believed that corpses of werewolves,
if not destroyed, would return to life in the form of wolves or hyenas,
which prowled battlefields, drinking the blood of dying soldiers.
In some rural areas of Germany, Poland, and northern France, it was once believed that
people who died in mortal sin come back to life as blood-drinking wolves.
These undead werewolves would return to their human corpse form at daylight.
They were dealt with by decapitation with a spade and exorcism by the parish priest.
The head would then be thrown into a stream where the weight of its sins was thought to weigh it down.
Sometimes the same methods used to dispose of ordinary vampires were used as well.
And the vampire was also linked to the werewolves in Eastern European countries,
particularly places like Bulgaria, Serbia, and Slovenia.
In Serbia, werewolves and vampires are known collectively as Vold Koldlik,
which I probably butchered. Let's try one more time. Vold Koldlik.
Now, I bet what you're wondering at this point, how does one become a werewolf?
Certainly, it's by being bitten by a werewolf or a wolf.
Well, it's really not that simple. Sometimes it's even simpler.
Sometimes it's as simple as putting on a belt made of wolf skin,
probably as a substitute for the assumption of an entire animal skin.
In other cases, the body is rubbed with a magical salve. This one I find weird.
Drinking rainwater out of the footprint of the animal in question or from certain enchanted
streams were also considered effectual modes of accomplishing metamorphosis.
That is a weird one. Belt one's a little weird too.
16th century Swedish writer Ola Magnus says that the Livonian werewolves were initiated by
draining a cup of specifically prepared beer and repeating a set formula.
Ralston in his song of the Russian people gives the form of incantation still familiar in Russia.
In Italy, France and Germany, it was said that a man or woman turned into a werewolf if he or she,
on a certain Wednesday or Friday, slept outside on a summer night with a full moon shining directly
on his or her face. The full moon. So that whole thing was weird.
In other cases, the transformation was supposedly accomplished by satanic allegiances for the most
loathsome ends, often for the sake of sating a craving for human flesh.
Now, I didn't realize this. You're familiar with the craze of witch trials, right?
Yes.
Both through Europe and North America. Now, this also swept through Europe and it was accompanied
right around the exact same time with werewolf trials. Sometimes the witches were also being
tried for being werewolves, but sometimes that was the only thing. And there are specific court
cases about it. I found two. The second one, it's the lighthearted end to the story. This first one's
a little heavy. Also, it just seems like they're, well, let's just get to it.
Can I just ask a question before we get into it?
Are these cases based on like, if you had a werewolf case today as a lawyer,
you would go back to see what the rulings were on these ones?
Likely not, because this would be before the fall of empires. Like this first one happens in the
1580s. And I believe it's in Germany and I'm pretty sure that Germany uses a civil code. So
their rules are based on codified law, not on previous case law. You look at the law and see
how it applies to your specific case.
Then you need to find a different werewolf.
And the other one is Swedish, which I also believe is codified as well.
Okay. So no, we can't use these moving forward.
Yeah. But you would actually be able to use these cases as like the most similar, should it present
itself in your day and time, because there would be no precedent case likely in your area.
Oh, damn it. Okay. So I was thinking, because you said that there's probably one more recent
we could use, but there is probably not. Is that what you're saying?
There's no more werewolf trials.
There's none in Canada, unfortunately, as far as I know.
Died out.
Okay.
We're going to talk about the story of Peter Stump. Peter, the name Stump or Stump,
may have been given to him as reference to the fact that his left hand had been cut off,
leaving him only a stump.
Well, that sucks for him.
It was alleged that as he was a werewolf, the wolf had his left fore paw cut off.
And then the same injury proved the guilt of this man.
Stump was born in the village of Epporth near the country town of Bedberg in the electorate of Cologne.
He was a wealthy farmer of his rural community.
And during the 1580s, he seems to have been a widower with two children, a girl called Beale
Sible, who seems to have been older than 15 years old and a son of unknown age.
During 1589, Stump had one of the most lurid and famous werewolf trials in history.
After being stretched on a rack and before further torture commenced,
he confessed to having practiced black magic since he was 12 years old.
He claimed that the devil had given him a magical belt or girdle, which enabled him to metamorphose
into the likeness of a greedy devourer wolf, strong and mighty with eyes great and large,
which in the night sparkled like fire, a mouth great and wide and with most sharp and cruel teeth,
a huge body and mighty paws.
Removing the belt, he said, made him transform back to his human form,
and no such belt was ever found after his arrest.
Yeah, I was going to say it.
I just feel like he was a victim of unfortunate circumstances,
just matching the physical description of a wolf that someone happened upon.
Then he-
Well, and somebody with a handicap missing a hand.
Yeah, in a wolf with a handicap missing a paw.
So it sucks to be that guy until he was like, yeah, okay,
I transform into a wolf. I have this belt.
So yeah, they torture him and he just confesses to a whole bunch of things.
We're going to keep going.
For 25 years, Stump has allegedly been an insatiable bloodsucker who gorged on the
flesh of goats, lamb and sheep, as well as men, women and children.
Being threatened with torture, he also confessed to killing and eating 14 children,
two pregnant women, whose fetuses he ripped from their rooms and ate their hearts,
panting hot and raw, which he later described as dainty morsels.
One of the 14 children was his own son, whose brains he was reported to have devoured.
Oh no.
Not only was Stump accused of being a serial murderer and cannibal,
but also having an incestuous relationship with his daughter, who was sentenced to die with him,
and that he had coupled with a distant relative,
which was also considered to be incestuous according to the law.
In addition to this, he confessed to having had intercourse with a succubus
who had sent to him by the devil.
That's all they got out of confessions from this guy.
So what would have happened if he did not confess to this?
He probably would have died in torture.
And what happened to him after confessing to it? Did he die in torture?
Actually, I have this part of the story. I labeled the torture,
which is probably actually incorrect as it is the execution.
So on October 31st, 1589, alongside his daughter, Sybil, and his mistress, Catherine,
one of the most brutal executions ever recorded took place.
He was put to a wheel where flesh was torn from his body in 10 places
with red hot pincers, followed by his arms and legs.
Then his limbs were broken with the blunt side of an axe head
to prevent him from returning from the grave before he was beheaded and his body burned on a pyre.
His daughter and mistress had already been flayed and strangled
and were burned along with Stumpf's body.
As a warning against similar behavior, local authorities erected a pole
with the torture wheel and the figure of a wolf on it,
and at the very top they placed Peter Stumpf's severed head.
Oh God.
And that is what's known as the Peter Stumpf trial.
So no matter what he would have done,
I'm assuming the outcome would have been the same for-
A pretty horrible thing.
We call him Stumpf or Stumpf?
I called him Peter Stumpf just because it's easier for me to pronounce.
It makes a lot more sense.
You gotta wonder why did he confess if he didn't?
Because he was going to die either way.
That got him a little more time.
Okay, yeah, I guess.
Unless he really actually did all that stuff then.
Yeah.
Okay.
I think we're safe ruling it out, but okay.
Ruling out that he was a werewolf?
Yeah.
No, he admitted to it.
Okay, fair enough.
Why they didn't just use tricks of the werewolf trade, I don't know.
It actually-
Yeah, he could have-
It didn't come up a lot like how to ward off werewolves like traditionally.
That might be a different episode at some point.
We might just do a cryptid protection 101 episode.
Oh, that's a good one.
Okay, I'm making note right now.
Okay, and this one, I just love this case.
This is the worst witness testimony I have ever seen.
I have read a lot of cases.
This is by far the worst witness I have ever seen.
You've got my attention.
And this man is known as Fies of Keltenbrug.
In 1691, the judges of Jurgensberg, a town in Swedish Slavonia,
brought before them an octogenarian known as Fies of Keltenbrug,
believing him to be a witness in a case regarding a church robbery.
So remember this, he is here to talk to a judge about a robbery that happened at a church.
Okay.
They were aware of the fact that local people considered him to be a werewolf
who had consorted with the devil,
but they initially had little interest in such allegations,
which were unrelated to the case at hand.
Nonetheless, although it had no bearing on the case,
Fies freely admitted to the judges that he had once been a werewolf,
but claimed to have given it up 10 years previous.
Fies proceeded to offer them an account of lycanthropy
that differed significantly from traditional view of the werewolf,
then prevalent in Northern Germany and the Baltic countries.
Fies told the judges of how 10 years previously in 1681,
he had also appeared in court when he had accused a farmer from Lemberg of breaking his nose.
According to the story that he had then told, he had traveled down to hell as a wolf,
where the farmer who was practicing satanic witchcraft
had beat him on the nose with a broomstick decorated with horse tails.
At the time, the judges refused to believe his story and laughed him out of court,
but one of the judges did verify that his nose had indeed been broken.
This time, the judges of Jürgensberg decided to take his claims more seriously,
and trying to establish if he was mad or insane,
they asked several individuals in the court who knew Fies if he was of sound mind.
They relayed as far as they knew his common sense had never failed him.
These individuals also related that Fies' status in the local community
had actually increased since he had run in with the law back in 1681.
Isn't that concerning?
Like, keep in mind, I just need to state this again,
they were asking him about a church robbery and he just says,
yeah, yeah, I don't do werewolf stuff anymore, not since 10 years ago.
And they're probably like, that's great.
Anyhow, this money that went missing from the church,
yeah, yeah, it's all because back when I went down to hell to fight that guy,
and he hit me on the nose and you guys just refused to do anything about it.
Fies claimed that on the night of St. Lucia's Day,
and also on the night of Pentecost and St. John's Day,
he and other werewolves transformed from their human bodies into wolves.
When questioned further on how this occurred,
Fies initially claimed that they did so by putting on wolves' pelts,
claiming that he had originally obtained his from a farmer,
but that several years before he had passed it on to someone else.
When the judges asked him to identify these individuals, he changed his story,
claiming that he and other werewolves simply went into the bushes,
undressed, and then transformed into wolves.
I love that.
Oh yeah, yeah, this farmer gave me this wolf pelt and we were able to transform it to wolves,
but I didn't need to do it anymore, so I gave the pelt away.
Wait, so which farmer? And who'd you give it to?
Wait, no, no, we just got naked.
But his neighbors say that he's of complete sound mind.
And his common sense doesn't fail him.
Yes. Following this, Fies related that he and the other werewolves
wandered around local farms and ripped apart any farm animals that came across
before roasting the meat and devouring it.
When the judge inquired how wolves could roast meat, Fies told them that at this point they
were still in human form and they liked to add salt to their food but never add any bread.
Judge asked the important question.
He's not putting an end to it, he's just, no, prodding it.
Fies also told the judges of how he had become a werewolf, explaining that he had once become
a beggar and that one day a rascal had drunk a toast to him, thereby giving him the ability
to transform into a wolf. He furthermore related that he could pass on his ability
to someone else by toasting them, breathing into the jug three times and proclaiming,
you will become like, if the other individual then took the jug, they would become a werewolf.
But Fies claimed that he was yet to find anyone ready to take over the role of
canthrope from him. Keeping in mind he had earlier said it was from the pelt.
His common sense is definitely not failing you.
No, this done. Fies related that the wolves traveled to a place that was located beyond the
sea. This spot was a swamp near Lemberg, about a half mile away from the estate of the court's
chairman. Here they entered into hell, where they battled both the devil and malevolent witches who
were loyal to him. Beating them with long iron rods, chasing them like dogs, Fies furthermore
told the judges that werewolves cannot tolerate the devil and that they were the hounds of God.
The judges of Juergensburg were confused, asking Fies why the werewolves traveled to hell if they
hated the devil. He responded by telling them that he and his brethren had to go on their journey
in order to bring back the livestock grains and fruits of the earth which had been stolen by the
witches. If they failed in their tasks, Fies opined, then that year's harvest would be bad.
He told them now how the previous year he had traveled to hell as a werewolf and that he had
managed to carry as much barley, oats, and rye as he could carry away to earth in order to ensure a
bountiful harvest. Here the judges noted inconsistencies in Fies' claims. He had earlier
asserted that he had abandoned his life as a werewolf ten years previously, but here he
admitted that he had traveled to hell the previous year. Under scrutiny, Fies admitted that he had
lied in his former claim. The Juergensburg judges then asked Fies where the souls of werewolves
went when they died and he responded that they would go to heaven, plus the souls of witches
would go to hell. The judges then questioned this, asking how it was possible for the werewolf
soul to go to heaven if they were servants of the devil. Once more, Fies reiterated that werewolves
were not servants of the devil but God and that they undertook their nocturnal journey to hell
for the good of mankind. I'm also quite upset that they didn't question like this guy was devouring
livestock yet he's going to hell to save the livestock for a bountiful harvest. Yeah no,
I'm quite enjoying- Like these judges seem to have the good questions. They missed that. They have
really good questions. My favorite was how do wolves roast meat? Yeah. I really wish he would
have changed his story at that point, which I guess he kind of did. He's like, oh no, we're human there.
After listening to his count of nocturnal travels to hell, the judges became concerned as to whether
Fies was a devout Lutheran or not and so asked him if he attended church regularly, listened to
God's words regularly, prayed, and partook of the Lord's Supper. Fies replied that he did none of
these things, claiming that he was too old to understand. It was later revealed that aside
from his nocturnal journeys, Fies practiced folk magic for members of the local community acting
as a healer and a charmer. He was known to bless grain and horses and also knew charms designed to
ward off wolves and to stop bleeding. One of these charms involved administering blessed salt and
warm beer while reciting the words, sun and moon go over the sea, fetch back the soul that the devil
had taken to hell and give the cattle back life and health which was taken from them. Nowhere did
the charm invoke or mention the power of God. For the judges, this blessing was seen as a criminal
offense because it encourages clients to turn away from Christianity and so they sentenced Fies to
be flogged and banished for life. It's almost like they were fishing for him to say something like
that. Yeah, why he had to travel to hell if he wasn't Christian in any way or you know he had
to have known at that time. Just say oh yeah yeah devout Lutheran sure but like used to be a werewolf.
Oh no after this story he couldn't have just said he was a devout Lutheran. Wouldn't make sense.
Simply brought in questioned about money going missing from the church. He gets banished. Did
he actually say anything relation to the missing? I have no idea that part did not make the Wikipedia
page. So yeah that is my favorite werewolf trial. That's now my favorite werewolf sorry.
These the werewolf who got banished for not practicing the Lutheranism. At least with that
court case it didn't become that now werewolves are like altar boys. Yeah fair enough. Because
they're so close with God. Well that is the common history of this culturally. Once again I have to
invoke the name Bram Stroker. Not made famous from the elephant shows Sharon Lois and Bram. For those
of you that are well versed in your early 90s Canadian weekend child tv you're welcome for that
one. But Bram Stroker in her 1897 novel Dracula and the short story Dracula's Guest. She drew
on early mythology of werewolves and similar legends of demons and she's known as the voice
of anxieties for the age. In Dracula's Guest a band of military horsemen coming to the aid of
the protagonist chase off Dracula and depict him as a great wolf stating the only way to kill it is
with a sacred bullet. This also mentioned the main novel Dracula as well. Count Dracula stated in the
novel that legend of werewolves originated from his Zakeli racial bloodline who himself is also
depicted with the ability to shape shift into a wolf at will during the night but is unable to
do so during the day except at noon. That's really where the idea of silver bullets at least comes
from in the modern age for how to kill a werewolf. There are of course things that end up being fairly
close to werewolves but not quite werewolves. There's the whole idea of Dogman which is its own
can of worms and has really weird politics and controversies in the podcast community of Dogman.
I follow its reddit page and it is weird. We might do a Dogman episode in the future. It is not this.
It has close ties with Bigfoots in a lot of areas. Frankly actually in a lot of cases where people
are claiming werewolves cryptozoologists or people that are studying it or looking into it tend to
look at it more as a Bigfoot sighting to avoid the paranormal side of it. Yes of course. There are
still werewolf sightings to this day depending on how you really look at what a werewolf is.
There is in Wisconsin it's the Beast of Bray Road also known as Man Wolf, Bear Wolf. It is said to
be six feet tall with gray and brown fur. Its face resembles that of a wolf with shiny yellow eyes
and pointed ears. Its body though furry looks like a muscular man. The creature is said to run and
walk on all four of its legs or just its hind legs and has been spied sitting on its haunches and
kneeling like a man. Some researchers consider the Beast of Bray Road to be identical to a kind of
Wisconsin Bigfoot that locals call the Bluff Monster or just Eddie. Others include that it may
be a Wendigo. We'll probably do an episode on that later or you know just simply Wolf, Bear,
Large Feral Dog. This is some sightings of the Beast of Bray Road. This one takes place in 1936
location just Jefferson County Wisconsin. Mark Shackleman was driving along Highway 18 just
outside of Jefferson Wisconsin when he noticed someone digging in a field off the side of the
road. The site was a location where a Native American burial ground was believed to be.
When Shackleman slowed down to get a better look the man turned around and faced him. It turns out
that it was a hairy creature that stood on two legs which Shackleman described as looking like
a mix between an ape and a dog. The creature had the general shape of a large man with opposable
thumbs and everything. Shackleman drove off in a hurry but remained curious about the creature. The
next night he drove past the same area hoping to see the creature. He did. This time the man
beast growled at him in a way that sounded eerily human making the sound that he described as
gada rah. Shackleman freaked out and the creature ran off. This being the most famous of the sightings
here coming up happened in 1999 in Elkhorn Wisconsin. It was the night of Halloween 1999
an 18 year old woman named Doris Dean Gibson was driving home on Bray Road when her car suddenly
jerked as if she had hit something. She got out of the car and walked back along the road straining
to see. Then she caught sight of what she had hit. A huge dark hairy figure began rushing towards
her. Gibson ran back into her car and began to drive away. The beast reportedly jumped up onto
the trunk of the car but due to the wetness of the rain cover car it could not hold on and it
fell to the ground. Gibson said she drove back to the location that same night with a young trick
or treater and they both saw a large figure laying on the side of the road. They did not stay long.
Gibson reported the sighting the next day which is what brought the other witnesses to share their
tales. At this point no one was sure what the creature was so they dubbed it the Bray Road
Beast. There were many sightings in the year of 1999 apparently. There's been a ton of sightings
so I had to kind of like pick and choose as I went. The most recent of which happened in 2017
Ron Rice a fertilizer salesman was dropping off fertilizer on a routine trip in May of 2017
when he was sitting in his truck in broad daylight. He looked into the distance about 150 feet he
thinks and a figure caught his eye. The thing was huge it was over seven feet tall Rice said. It was
brown and hairy and had coarse hair. It walked out and picked something up and then turned its back
towards me and went back into the woods. Two weeks later Rice said he saw the beast again and again
it walked out of the woods and quickly returned. Probably not a werewolf but commonly people call
it a werewolf online so I just wanted to get that. I could see why you would think that I mean
wolf-like walking on two legs sometimes. But yeah that gives you a brief overview. Obviously that
was just from a Eurocentric point of view. There are similar folktales and creatures both vampiric
and lycanthropic in nature in Asia, Africa, the Native Americas. I was gonna ask you that. We had
to cut that off at some point so that's that's how I feel. They have them though too in like Asia.
That might be an episode for a future one maybe international. That would be a good one. Oh yeah I'm gonna
I'm gonna keep the mystery there and I think this is also where we're going to stop this episode.
For those of you listening on Halloween day enjoy your evening. Should you hit anything with your car
just keep driving. Worst case scenario actually yeah. Best case scenario it's I don't know maybe
a poorly lit up or a safety covered trick-or-treater. Worst case scenario it's the Beast of Bray Road.
So you know either way just keep going. Is that worst case scenario? I don't know which one's
actually the worst case scenario in that one. So far hitting the Beast of Bray Road seems to have a
100 survival rate and no court case is brought against you. Okay fair enough. Well no no that's
not worse. I think that's best case scenario. Anyhow you enjoy your candy or your scares the
haunting season. I have been Taylor here with Chelsea. We are Journey to the Fringe. Thank you
all for listening and we will see you next week. Thank you for listening to Journey to the Fringe.
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