Don’t you just love a good story? Whether it’s a myth, an old wives’ tale, or even an urban legend, we love hearing these entertaining yarns. Welcome back…
Join us today as we take a deep dive into some fascinating tales. This is Season 5 Episode 11: LEGENDS & LORE: PART 1
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INTRO AND STORIES |
INTRO We’ve all heard them. Myths, lore, old wives’ tales, legends and even urban legends. While the overwhelming majority of these tall tales have no concrete factual basis, they are an important part of popular culture. Often, they contain what are perceived as important morals, warnings, or lessons. But beyond that, they’re also good fun! From a website called livescience.com we find this quote by Mikel J. Koven, a folklorist at the University of Wales. "Life is so much more interesting with monsters in it, it’s the same with these legends. They're just good stories."
While researching for this episode we found so many intriguing legends and fascinating lore that we are stretching this topic into two episodes. We searched through several dozen sites and collected what we feel are the most interesting. And then we noticed something. Fully half of the material that we accumulated was related to one area, and it isn’t the United States. Can you guess where? None other than pip pip cheerio jolly olde England – OK and Scotland too. So, we have divided this two-parter into a Non-British episode which you will hear today, and then Part 2 will be nothing but British legends and lore. This should give you plenty of time to accumulate your scones and crumpets and maybe some haggis.
Van Hunks smoking with the devil
From travelnhistory.com we find an interesting article titled Local Folktales and Legends from Around the World. This travel website utilizes bloggers from all over the world for their stories. For this article they asked their contributors to dish on local folktales in their area. We will share some of the most interesting ones here.
From Cape Town, South Africa a blogger named Katja Mamacos shared the tale of Van Hunks smoking with the devil.
Cape Town is a beautiful coastal city at the very southern tip of the African continent. It is backed by an enormous mountain with a flat top named Table Mountain.
The story goes that an old Dutch pirate named Van Hunks used to trek up the mountain and smoke his pipe there under a tree. He did it so often and was so good at puffing away that eventually, the devil grew curious. So, one day when Van Hunks reached his favorite smoking spot, he found a youth sitting there who asked him for a light. Van Hunks obliged and was soon challenged to a smoking competition. He was confident of his skill and he had the time, so the old pirate said, “Sure, why not!” The pair sat puffing and puffing until a thick smoke shrouded the whole mountain. After several hours, the youth conceded that Van Hunks was the superior smoker. As he walked away, Van Hunks noticed that the youth had a red barbed tail. It was then that he realized that he had spent the whole afternoon smoking with the devil. And so now whenever the clouds roll in and cover Table Mountain, the locals say that Van Hunks and the devil are at it again!
The Legend of Lady Sermonde
This next one comes from a French blogger named Leyla Alyanak. It’s called the Legend of Lady Sermonde, and it comes from the rugged red colored hills of Provence (Pro Vence) in southern France.
The chateau of Roussillon (ro cee yon) was once occupied by a certain Lady Sermonde and her husband, Lord Raymond, who spent his days hunting rather than with his wife. She twiddled her thumbs in boredom until one day, a man named Guillaume (gee yome) was hired into the household and… well, you can guess what happened.
It’s hard to keep a secret like that for very long. As they say in France, “The walls have ears.” When whispers of the indiscretion reached Lord Raymond, he was of course furious. He invited Guillaume to go along with him on a hunt. I think a good rule of thumb is to never go on an expedition requiring firearms with the husband of your lover. But Guillaume agreed to go and while on the hunt Lord Raymond asked pointedly if Guillaume was in love with Lady Sermonde. Telling an understandable white lie, Guillaume told Lord Raymond that, yes, it was true that he was in love, but with Lady Sermonde’s sister Agnes. Lord Raymond apologized for his false accusations and shook Guillaume’s hand vigorously.
However, the following night he witnessed Guillaume sneaking out of Lady Sermonde’s bed chamber. The next morning, he invited Guillaume to go hunting with him again, but this time he attacked Guillaume and cut out his heart. Then he returned to the chateau and told the cook to prepare the heart in a stew. The hearty stew was then served to Lady Sermonde who licked her plate clean and pronounced it the most delicious stew she ever tasted. Once she had wiped her face, Raymond revealed the awful truth, upon which she ran out of the castle and threw herself off the hills. Her blood ran through the earth, turning it into the dark red color it has to this day.
Manamaggal – The Philippines
Then from The Philippines a blogger named Christine Rogador writes about a mythical creature in Filipino folklore called the Manamaggal.
The Manamaggal is described as a hideous woman with wild hair and big eyes. Its teeth can grow fangs and its fingers can grow vicious claws. It can detach its upper and lower torsos and develop huge bat-like wings to hunt its next victim. One of the manamaggal’s key targets is grooms-to-be. Taking on the appearance of a beautiful woman, the manamaggal will lure the man to a secret spot when it devours his stomach, heart, and liver. Another favorite prey of the manamaggal is newlyweds and pregnant women.
The manananggal’s severed lower body is thought to be the more fragile of the two pieces. If somebody comes across this severed lower portion, sprinkling salt or smearing crushed garlic on top of the standing torso will kill the creature. After that, the upper torso will be unable to reunite and will perish at dawn. The Manananggal avoids daggers, light, vinegar, and stingray tails in addition to salt and garlic.
It is unknown where the legend of the manamaggal originated, but one prevailing theory is that the myth was perpetuated by the Spanish who invaded and colonized The Philippines in 1565. At the time there was a group of powerful women in The Philippines named the Babaylans who were respected diviners and spiritualists. It is thought that the Spanish created the myth of the manamaggal in an attempt to link the creature to the Babaylans and thus discredit them.
The Fairies and the Hawthorn Tree
And then from Ireland (no, Ireland is not part of Britain) we hear from a travel blogger named Isabel Hoyne who tells us about the Fairies and the Hawthorn Tree. You may think more of Leprechauns when you think of Ireland, but the Emerald Isle is full of legends about all manner of creatures. They take fairies very seriously.
Hoyne writes that in Ireland it is a very common superstition that you should never cause harm to a Hawthorn tree, particularly if it stands alone. The belief is that the Hawthorn tree marks the location where fairies convene after sunset. These trees are also known as Fairy Trees, and it is believed that they contain the portal by which the fairies ascend and descend to and from the earth.
Quoting from Hoyne, “If you drive through the Irish countryside, you’ll often see a lone hawthorn tree on a hilltop, in the middle of a field (sometimes fenced off), or in an ancient ring fort, and there’s a reason for that – they’ve been left that way on purpose lest the little people be disturbed. This legend is taken quite seriously in Ireland, so much so that in 1990 a proposed bypass road was completely re-routed in order not to disturb a sacred Hawthorn tree where legend claims two warring groups of fairies meet for battle.
The Irish believe that meddling in the affairs of fairies is a surefire way to draw negative attention to yourself, thus the need for caution. Throughout history they have been blamed for crop failures, livestock deaths, ill fortune, sickness, you name it. Some even blamed the fairies for the Potato Famine of 1845 -52 which we covered in our terrific S5E7 about potatoes called This Spud’s For You. So, if you see that lone hawthorn tree when visiting Ireland – make sure to treat it with the respect it deserves. And don’t irk the fairies!
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The Kraken – Sweden
We find some more unusual myths and legends from a travel website called dealchecker.co.uk
As most of you know, Sir Kraken the Octopus is our globe-trotting mascot here at Remnant Stew. He has been spotted far and wide in recent years and we are told that he will be traveling again later this year. Keep watching our social media for updates on his new adventures.
But perhaps you may not be familiar with the origins of his familial namesake and that his heritage can be traced back to Scandinavia. The Swedes and Norwegians have long been noted as great seafarers. Of course, the Vikings were famous, or perhaps infamous, as they sailed and conquered much of Western Europe a thousand years ago. In the years after the Vikings, Scandinavian fishermen became skilled at sailing many miles away from land to harvest the bounty of the sea.
Of course, with all that sea travel, you are bound to encounter some unexplainable sea creatures. Imagine being on a small fishing boat and catching a glimpse of a creature that’s 30 feet in length - and that is just the part that you can see! Your imagination would run wild, conjuring visions of an unholy being sent to swallow you up. You’d certainly mention it when you got back to land! This is what Scandinavian sailors and fishermen reported, and their collective terror became known as the Legend of the Kraken.
Originally the word Kraken was a Swedish nickname for whales. Superstition would not allow them to say the name “whale” because of fear that saying the word would summon the mighty beast and he would swamp your boat and eat you, so they said Kraken instead. Later, in Swedish and Norwegian the word Kraken came to mean a sea creature that was twisted and deformed, like a delinquent sea monster who was looking for trouble. Most likely what these sailors were seeing was a giant squid. These creatures can reach lengths of over forty feet, and they can be quite aggressive. Hence the name Kraken came to represent a feared legendary creature of the deep.
So, the next time you see a photo of Sir Kraken clinging to an airplane wing over Mt. Rainier, or posing next to a giant potato in Canada or curled up inside a wooden shoe in Holland or relaxing on a beach in Greece, pay the cephalopod the respect he is due. Don’t mess with Kraken!
Scylla and Charybdis from Greece / Italy
Most people are familiar with the unique outline of the country of Italy. The country takes the shape of a high heeled boot jutting southward from the mainland of Europe. Just off the toe of the boot is the somewhat triangular shaped island of Sicily. Between the toe of Italy and Sicily is a long narrow body of water known as the Strait of Messina.
The Strait of Messina is only about 20 miles long and is just two miles wide at its narrowest point. It was greatly feared in antiquity by sailors because of its hidden rocks and whirlpools.
In his Odyssey, Homer personified these two dangers as female monsters named Scylla (skilla) and Charybdis (cherub dis). These two terrors occupied opposite sides of the strait. On one side, there’s Charybdis: a creature that dwells in the depths of the ocean and sucks ships into a swirling whirlpool to their peril. On the other side, there’s Scylla: a six-headed monster that plucks men from ships to eat as they pass.
Odysseus must make the difficult choice of which side of the strait to sail. He might possibly chance sneaking his ships past Charybdis risking the long odds of not getting sucked into the whirlpool, but all of his men will die if they don’t make it. On the other side Scylla will definitely eat six men from each of his ships, but the rest should be able to escape. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place! Which choice would you make? Odysseus decided to sail by Scylla and sacrifice six men from each ship in order for the rest of them to pass through safely.
Namazu The Japanese Earth Shaker
You are probably aware that Japan is a nation found in the western Pacific Ocean on four main islands and thousands of smaller ones. The nation is located where four tectonic plates grind against one another and is also part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. As such, it is heavily prone to experiencing earthquakes. In fact, a website called worlddata.info states that a 4.0 or higher earthquake takes place somewhere in Japan almost every day. You probably recall the 2011 Tohoku quake which measured 9.1 on the Richter Scale and sparked a tsunami. More than 15,000 people died because of this quake alone. The Japanese are very well aware of the dangers of earthquakes, and to help the public understand what to do and where to go they have drawn upon some of their ancient folklore. Enter the Namazu.
You might recall that the ancient Japanese’ neighbors in China believed that the earth sat upon the back of a giant turtle, and that earthquakes were caused by his movements. Well in Japan they didn’t figure a turtle in their beliefs, instead they had something else.
Nowadays, we know that earthquakes are caused by the plates shifting slightly, but in ancient times, people had to explain why the ground beneath them suddenly started shaking. They blamed it on Namazu, the Earth shaking catfish.
According to the legend, Namazu lives under the islands of Japan and occasionally thrashes his mighty tail about causing earthquakes. The only force who can stop him is a dim-witted and easily distracted deity named Kashima. When Kashima gets sidetracked then Namazu begins thrashing about and before you know it the earth starts quaking.
Even though the science of predicting earthquakes has advanced tremendously, the Japanese decided to utilize Namazu in their early warning system. Throughout Japan you will see signs depicting the giant catfish along with instructions about where and how to get to safety. So, if you are in Japan and the ground begins shaking, look for Namazu!
Tsunami Ghosts – Japan
Let’s talk a little bit more about the Tohoku Quake of 2011. The Tōhoku earthquake, named for the region of northeastern Japan from which it originated, was the most devastating in the nation’s recorded history. On March 11 at 2:46 p.m. local time the earthquake started. Centered 45 miles east of Tōhoku at a depth of 15 miles below the surface of the ocean, it shook the Earth for a full six minutes! As if the shaking wasn’t bad enough, the quake triggered 128-foot tsunami waves that crashed into Miyako (Me yako), a city in northeastern Japan. In some places the water traveled inland as far as six miles.
As we mentioned above, more than 15,000 people lost their lives. In addition, millions lost access to running water or electricity, and more than 120,000 buildings were destroyed within a matter of minutes. These include hospitals, schools, homes, businesses, airports, train stations, and everything else. Perhaps most notably, the tsunami also caused a cooling system failure at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, leading to an infamous meltdown.
But shortly after the disaster the traumatized survivors begin seeing apparitions. The faces of people began showing up in puddles. Soaking wet individuals appeared at people’s front doors. People were seen at the beach the following summer still wearing their soaked winter coats. Several taxi drivers claimed that they had picked up riders who simply vanished. And these weren’t one-off sightings — residents all across the hardest-hit cities were reporting such apparitions.
The Tsunami Ghost stories became so pervasive that university academics started cataloging the stories. People genuinely believed that they were seeing these visions. Richard Lloyd Parry, a British journalist who had lived in Japan for 18 years, spent several weeks in the disaster area. He wrote, “Stories of ghosts and hauntings and supernatural events were reported to the extent that it almost seemed like an epidemic.”
Five years later a graduate student named Yuka Kudo traveled to the area specifically to visit taxi drivers and get their stories. The first cabbie told Kudo of an encounter he had in the summer of 2011. It had only been a few months since the tsunami, and there were barely any customers. He was naturally shocked to suddenly spot a young woman hailing him down in a particularly hard-hit area. Wearing a heavy winter coat in the middle of summer, the figure was also completely drenched. The driver barely had time to realize that it hadn’t rained in days before she climbed into the back seat and asked to be driven to the largely abandoned Minamihama (min a me hama) district. “That area is almost empty,” he said while switching on the meter. “Are you sure?” There was a long silence. Then, in a shivering voice, the woman asked: “Have I died?” The terrified driver turned around to face the customer but found absolutely nothing nor anyone in his car. In all, seven different cab drivers detailed similar experiences.
While there are no clean and clear explanations to these sightings it may be helpful to examine Japan’s historic relationship with the spirit realm. The Shinto religion has a long-standing cultural relationship with ghosts. They believe that spirits inhabit all things both animate and inanimate. Many Japanese came to believe that because the tsunami took people before they were ready to die, their restless spirit still wanders the plane of reality.
Richard Parry, the British journalist mentioned earlier, collected so much data about these happenings that he wrote a book about it called Ghosts of the Tsunami. It’s available on Amazon for $11.99. While many might think Japan to be one of the least religious nations in the world, Parry has discovered otherwise. “I hadn’t realized how real and alive the cult of the ancestors and the cult of the dead is,” Parry reported.
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The Legend of the Leg Stain
We finally make it to the United States for this story. From reddit.com and also roadsideamerica.com we find the intriguing tale about a popular local attraction in Bucksport, Maine. It appears that back in the mid 1700s the town’s founder, Colonel Jonathan Buck, was having an affair with a local young woman. When she became pregnant, the colonel forced her to leave the town. She took up shelter in a cabin on her father’s property and raised her son alone. Many years later when the boy was a teenager the woman approached Colonel Buck for financial assistance in raising their son. At this, the colonel claimed that the woman was a witch and had her burned at the stake.
As the townspeople were taking her body down her son tried to retrieve it in order to bury her on his property. He grabbed her leg to try to wrestle the body away from the townspeople, but due to being badly decomposed from the burning, the leg came off in his hand. He took the leg and said it would be buried near his home. Before he left, however, he told the colonel, "Your Tomb shall bear the mark of a witch's foot for all eternity!" Seems like kind of an odd curse, and no one really paid much attention to the boy.
However, after the colonel died, a tombstone was erected for him, and overnight a leg-shaped stain appeared right of the face of it. People tried to remove the stain, but it wouldn't go away. Eventually, they just replaced the stone on the tomb entirely... only for a new, identical stain to appear in the exact same spot on the new stone.
The legend grew over the years. In the 1900s the town of Bucksport began selling postcards of the cursed tomb. Fame of the legendary leg stain has spread to the point that the town, recognizing a good thing, has upgraded the Cursed Tomb experience in recent years. There is now a little parking area next to the cemetery, and a wheelchair-friendly concrete ramp leading up to the cursed monument.
Pictures of the tomb do show a definite stain in the shape of a stockinged leg or perhaps a boot. So, is this legend true? Well doubters point out that the British did not burn witches in North America, but rather they hung them. As Colonel Buck was a Justice of the Peace, he didn’t have the authority to hang anyone, much less burn them. And they point out that Colonel Buck was born in 1719 some thirty years after the last known witch trial in New England. Likely the stain is just a shapely iron deposit on the monument, but it is interesting, nonetheless.
The Moon and the Sun – Greenland
We had a lot of excitement here in the greater Cut & Shoot area back in April as millions of people experienced a total eclipse of the Sun. Well, the Inuit people of Greenland have an interesting bit of lore about eclipses. As this is a family show, we will clean up the story a bit, but you will still get the idea.
This information comes to us from listverse.com. According to the Inuit the Moon and Sun were brother and sister. They grew up playing happily together until they became teenagers. That’s when the Moon tried to get too – um – friendly with the Sun. The sun fled from the moon and took off across the sky. The moon took off after the sun and continues to chase her until this day. The Moon is so determined to catch her that he forgets to eat. His ravenous desire for the Sun causes him to starve himself, growing thinner and creating the various phases of the Moon.
That means that when you look up at the Sun and the Moon what you are really seeing is a victim running from an unrelenting predator. But wait, it gets worse. When there is a solar eclipse, it means that the Moon has caught up with the Sun and is doing something that you probably don’t want your kids to be watching through a pinhole in a shoebox.
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The Casket Girls of New Orleans
Back in the early 1700s the French were trying to colonize their settlements in North America. They established three main outposts along the Gulf Coast at Mobile, Biloxi, and New Orleans. The inhabitants of these cities were primarily explorers, trappers, and traders. As such, these communities were approximately 95% male.
The Catholic priests became concerned that without wives for these men, the future of Christian evangelism in the French territory was at risk. So, the priests contacted officials in port cities back in France to send over any spare women that they might have. These officials happily obliged by emptying out their prisons and brothels and sent the women to the new world. Unfortunately, these “ladies” didn’t make good domestic partners for the trappers and traders, so they asked King Louis XIV (14th) for help. The Sun King as Louis was called issued a call for virtuous women who were living in convents and orphanages to avail themselves of an opportunity to travel to New Orleans to be betrothed to men they had never met.
In 1728, the first group of virtuous women arrived in New Orleans. They were all orphans with respectable backgrounds and had been handpicked for the journey. When they disembarked from the ship, the residents of the city noticed how pale these young women appeared to be. Of course, the ocean journey at that time would have taken a couple of months and was a hard journey for the women, some even during the passage. What was even more odd about them though is that their trunks which they called cassettes looked more like caskets. This led to the women being given the nickname Casket Girls. The women were given lodging in a building known as the Ursuline Convent until suitable husbands could be found for them.
But then an odd thing occurred. Soon after the Casket Girls arrived, the city began experiencing mysterious deaths. The nuns at the convent began to suspect that the Casket Girls might be up to no good. After an examination of their third floor living quarters found that their trunks were actually empty rather than containing clothes and other personal items, the nuns determined that the Casket Girls were vampires. The women who had not married were promptly rounded up and shipped back to France.
Realizing the vampiric situation, the nuns had the shutters on the third-floor windows nailed shut – using silver nails blessed by the Pope. Depending on the version of the story that you hear, this was done to either seal the vampires in or prevent them from returning to their caskets. The Ursuline convent building still stands today, and yes, those shutters remain nailed shut, lest the vampires return.
Ok, this is a nice myth, but it doesn’t really stand up to fact-checking. While women were recruited to come from France to marry colonists, they didn’t bring coffin-like chests. Rather, they each carried a cassette, which is a small box that would have held their supplies and valuables. They were known as the Casket Girls. While the word ‘cassette’ does translate to casket, it still originally meant a small box, not a coffin. It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that coffins began to be called caskets. Still, if you take a tour through the Ursuline Convent building today, you will likely be told as fact that the Vampire Casket Girls were a real menace to New Orleans in the 1700s.
Victorian Table Legs
I think this one may qualify as more of an urban legend, but it’s too interesting to pass by. Perhaps you are familiar with the notion that upper class Victorians in England in the 1800s were so prudish that they made extensive use of tablecloths to cover up their tables’ bare legs. The myth carries the idea that shapely table legs were so provocative that the dictates of polite society demanded that they be hidden from the voyeuristic public view.
Of course, the Victorian era, named for Queen Victoria, was noted as a time when en vogue fashion for women was floor length dresses with long sleeved petticoats. Even gloves were commonly worn by women during this era in an effort to show as little skin as possible. For women to show bare legs or even stockinged calves was considered shameful. So, it is not a huge leap to consider that these same Victorians would want to cover their shapely table legs also.
Except that it is not true.
According to mentalfloss.com this myth did begin in the mid 1800s by an Englishman, but he was in America at the time. In 1839 a British naval officer named Frederick Marryat was traveling through the United States and was taking careful notes on what he observed. Upon returning to England, he published his book titled A Diary in America in which he summarized his experiences. While visiting Niagara Falls he observed a young woman fall and scrape her knee. A while later he saw her again and asked her if her “leg” was OK. The woman was aghast at his inappropriate language and stated, “A gentleman only refers to ‘limbs’ in the presence of a lady, and never ‘legs,’ even when talking about furniture.”
Marryat goes on to explore this ridiculous concept by saying that he later visited a seminary where he saw a piano with legs covered by “modest little trousers with frills at the bottom of them.” The captain says that the coverings were there to maintain the “utmost purity of the young ladies.”
It appears that Marryat included these anecdotes as opportunities for amusement. However, the public took this joke and ran with it until the urban legend was born.
Well, we hope that you have enjoyed these non-British legends, though I bet you thought we slipped up on that last one. Join us next time for part 2 when we will be fully focused on stories from Great Britain.
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O U T R O |
Phil here reminding you to check out our Facebook and Instagram pages @RemnantStewPodcast. Drop us an email at StayCurious@RemnantStew.com just to say hi or to let us know about any topics you would like to hear us cover in an upcoming episode.
Remnant Stew is part of Rook & Raven Ventures and is created by me, Leah Lamp. Steve Meeker researches and writes each episode that we then host together. Our audio producer is Phillip Sinquefield. The Oddity Du Jour is brought to you by Sam Lamp. Theme music is by Kevin MacLeod with voiceover by Morgan Hughes. Special thanks goes out to Judy Meeker. For a complete list of sources for this episode please see this episode’s transcript, there’s a link in the show notes.
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Until next time remember to choose to be kind…AND ALWAYS STAY CURIOUS!
--SOURCES ----------------------
https://www.livescience.com/7107-urban-legends-start-persist.html
https://travelnhistory.com/legends/local-folktales-and-legends-around-the-world/
https://www.dealchecker.co.uk/the-savvy-travel-collective/7-mind-blowing-myths-legends-from-around-the-world/
https://www.worlddata.info/asia/japan/earthquakes.php
https://allthatsinteresting.com/tsunami-spirits
https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/syndicated/eight-years-after-fukushima-japan-still-haunted-by-ghosts-of-the-tsunami/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/mfdhe9/comment/gsnpv77/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/6159
https://listverse.com/2017/04/09/top-10-truly-bizarre-folktales-and-legends-from-around-the-world/
https://locationsoflore.com/2022/08/06/casket-girls-new-orleans-vampire-tale/
https://www.neworleans.com/things-to-do/history/the-casket-girls-of-new-orleans/
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/victorian-table-legs-covering-myth
