Key Sources

Arthur Lewis, Hex (1969) — foundational narrative account. Still widely cited.

David W. Kriebel, Powwowing Among the Pennsylvania Dutch (Penn State University Press, 2007) — definitive academic treatment of Braucherei. Source for cure specifics (wound chant, hog bladder remedy, dollar bill vision test).

Johann Georg Hohman, Pow-Wows; or, Long Lost Friend (1820, multiple editions) — free on Internet Archive; annotated academic edition from Penn State University Press; also Amazon.

Shane Free, dir., Hex Hollow: Witchcraft and Murder in Pennsylvania (2015) — free to stream; features descendants of all parties and modern Powwow practitioners. Highly recommended companion viewing.

CrimeReads (2021), "A Tale of Witchcraft and Murder in Jazz Age America" — best single account of the trial proceedings and courtroom dynamics.

Wikipedia, Rehmeyer's Hollow — for baseline fact-check. Note: some popular sources contain errors on dates and childhood healer details; trial transcripts are the more reliable source.

Hey hey, my fellow Lore Lovers… welcome to Loreplay. 🖤

This is the podcast where history gets messy, folklore gets questionable, and I willingly spiral so you don’t have to. I’m your host, Dayna Pereira—your resident investigator of all things creepy, cursed, and deeply side-eye worthy.

Each week, we dig into the stories that make you go “wait… what the hell actually happened?”—from haunted places and urban legends to true crime and historical chaos. We separate fact from fiction… and then stare directly into the uncomfortable space in between.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable—send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here—death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow—and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

And remember…
Just because it’s folklore… doesn’t mean it’s (all) fiction. 😏

Hey hey, my fellow weirdos… welcome to Loreplay. 🖤

This is the podcast where history gets messy, folklore gets questionable, and I willingly spiral so you don’t have to. I’m your host, Dayna Pereira—your resident investigator of all things creepy, cursed, and deeply side-eye worthy.

Each week, we dig into the stories that make you go “wait… what the hell actually happened?”—from haunted places and urban legends to true crime and historical chaos. We separate fact from fiction… and then stare directly into the uncomfortable space in between.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable—send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here—death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow—and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

And remember…
Just because it’s folklore… doesn’t mean it’s (all) fiction. 😏

Primary Sources

• Evelyn, John. The Diary of John Evelyn. Entry for July 15, 1685. Evelyn was a direct eyewitness to the Monmouth execution and his account is considered one of the most reliable contemporary records.
• The Apologie of John Ketch (1683). Pamphlet published under Ketch's name following the execution of Lord Russell. Authorship disputed — some historians attribute it to Ketch himself; others note the provenance is uncertain. Cited with that caveat in-episode.
• Proceedings of the Old Bailey. January 14, 1676. First recorded court mention of Ketch by name.
• The Plotters Ballad, Being Jack Ketch's Incomparable Receipt for the Cure of Traytorous Recusants (1678). Satirical broadsheet pamphlet. Held at the British Library.

Secondary Sources

• Wales, Tim. "John Ketch." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004. The most authoritative modern biographical summary.
• Engel, Howard. Lord High Executioner: An Unashamed Look at Hangmen, Headsmen, and Their Kind. Key Porter Books, 1996. Covers Ketch in the context of execution history broadly.
• Wade, Stephen. Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths series. Cites and questions the provenance of the Apologie pamphlet.
• Stephenson, Neal. The Baroque Cycle (2003–2004). Historical fiction; useful for period color on the execution economy and aristocratic tipping customs, not cited as fact.
• Jullian, Philippe. Robert de Montesquiou (1965). Not directly relevant to Ketch but cited in the Moberly-Jourdain literature — flagged here only because it came up in research adjacently.

Online / Reference Sources Used in Research

• "Jack Ketch." Wikipedia. Consulted April 2026. Used for general chronology and cross-referencing broadsheet citations.
• "Jack Ketch." EBSCO Research Starters / Biography. Consulted April 2026.
• "1685: James Scott, Duke of Monmouth." Executed Today (executedtoday.com). Consulted April 2026. Particularly useful for scaffold dialogue sourcing and crowd response detail.
• Sherrat, Tim. "Jack Ketch." AllThatHistory (allthathistory.com). Consulted April 2026.
• "Fall of Monmouth: Sedgemoor, Capture & Botched Execution." History Defined (historydefined.net). Consulted April 2026.
• "An Execution Timeline: The Duke of Monmouth's Last Days." English Historical Fiction Authors (englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com). Consulted April 2026. Useful for detailed scaffold dialogue reconstruction.
• "Execution of the Duke of Monmouth." Warwalks (warwalks.com). Consulted April 2026.
• "The Execution of Monmouth." Our Civilisation — sourcing Macaulay's History of England. Consulted April 2026.
• Historic Royal Palaces — Tower of London official records. Referenced for the five-blow count on the Monmouth execution.

We follow the timeline of these bizarre incidents, focusing on personal accounts that read more like horror fiction than medical documentation. People described flashes of light, gunshot-like sounds, and immediate relief after the explosion—as if their mouth just rage-quit.

So what the hell was happening?

We break down the leading theories:

•  Early dental fillings made from unstable metals (hello, 1800s chaos chemistry) 
•  Hydrogen gas buildup inside decaying teeth (yes, your mouth potentially becoming a tiny bomb) 
•  Galvanic reactions—basically a battery forming in your mouth because of mixed metals 

…and why none of these explanations fully hold up under scrutiny.

Because here’s the thing: even modern dentistry can’t fully explain how a tooth could generate enough internal pressure to literally explode.

So was this a weird cluster of misdiagnosed dental abscesses? A case of experimental dentistry gone wrong? Or something even stranger—something we just don’t understand anymore?

Either way, this episode will make you:

•  Fear toothaches on a whole new level 
•  Deeply appreciate modern dentistry 
•  And maybe… never ignore mouth pain again 

Because in the 1800s, a toothache wasn’t just annoying.

It might have been a ticking time bomb.

SOURCES

Primary Source

"Explosion of Teeth With Audible Report"

W.H. Atkinson. The Dental Cosmos, Vol. 2, January 1861. University of Michigan / Hathi Trust digital archive.

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/dencos/acf8385.0002.001/333:78

Note: The archive page is image-based and requires institutional access. The Atkinson quotes used in this episode are reproduced via the secondary sources below, both of which cite this original directly.

Secondary Sources

"The gruesome and mysterious case of exploding teeth"

BBC Future, 1 March 2016. Includes expert commentary from Hugh Devlin (Professor of Restorative Dentistry, University of Manchester) and Andrea Sella (Professor of Inorganic Chemistry, UCL).

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160301-the-gruesome-and-mysterious-case-of-exploding-teeth

Note: This URL was blocked from direct fetch during production. Content confirmed via the Amusing Planet piece below, which reproduces both expert quotes and cites BBC Future as source.

"From the archive: The mysterious case of 'exploding teeth'"

British Dental Journal, vol. 219, pp. 376–377. Published 23 October 2015.

https://www.nature.com/articles/sj.bdj.2015.809

Reproduces BDJ correspondence originally published 1965–1966: Cyril Tomes (21 Sept 1965), B. Eady (5 Oct 1965), Basil G. Bibby / University of Pennsylvania (Dec 1965), Louis I. Grossman / University of Pennsylvania (Feb 1966). The Grossman letter quotes directly from J. Phelps Hibler's 1874 book. Directly fetched and verified.

"The Case of The Exploding Teeth"

Amusing Planet, 21 February 2023.

https://www.amusingplanet.com/2023/02/the-case-of-exploding-teeth.html

Reproduces the full Atkinson quote from The Dental Cosmos, summarizes the Hibler and BDJ cases, and includes the Devlin and Sella quotes from BBC Future. Directly fetched and verified. Used as the primary route to Atkinson's text.

Hey hey, my fellow lore lovers… welcome to Loreplay. 🖤

This is the podcast where history gets messy, folklore gets questionable, and I willingly spiral so you don’t have to. I’m your host, Dayna Pereira—your resident investigator of all things creepy, cursed, and deeply side-eye worthy.

Each week, we dig into the stories that make you go “wait… what the hell actually happened?”—from haunted places and urban legends to true crime and historical chaos. We separate fact from fiction… and then stare directly into the uncomfortable space in between.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable—send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here—death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow—and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

And remember…
Just because it’s folklore… doesn’t mean it’s (all) fiction. 😏

This week on Loreplay, we're covering Spring Heeled Jack: England's most chaotic urban legend and the Victorian era's most aggressively uncatchable public menace.

We'll dig into the documented 1838 attacks on Jane Alsop and Lucy Scales — two women whose detailed, police-recorded accounts are the closest thing this legend has to a paper trail. We'll meet the Lord Mayor of London, who had a very bad January trying to explain all of this to a crowded public session at Mansion House. We'll examine the mountain of press coverage that turned a probable aristocratic prank into a national panic. And we'll spend some quality time with Henry de la Poer Beresford, the 3rd Marquess of Waterford — known to his contemporaries as the Mad Marquis — who is either the most compelling suspect in Victorian folklore history, or just a very convenient scapegoat.

Nobody was ever convicted of being Spring Heeled Jack. This is going to bother us both.

SOURCES

Academic and book sources

Bell, Karl. The Legend of Spring-Heeled Jack: Victorian Urban Folklore and Popular Cultures. Boydell Press, 2012. The definitive academic study. Bell's analysis of the class-based disparity in press coverage of the Alsop and Scales cases is essential.

Dash, Mike. "Spring-heeled Jack: To Victorian Bugaboo from Suburban Ghost." Fortean Studies, vol. 3, 1996. The most rigorous forensic accounting of which sightings are documented vs. fabricated. The necessary corrective to Haining.

Haining, Peter. The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring-Heeled Jack. Frederick Muller Ltd, 1977. Influential but unreliable in places. Read alongside Dash.

Contemporary newspaper accounts

The Times (London), January 9–11, 1838. Coverage of the Mansion House public session, the Peckham letter, and the volume of correspondence from suburban London.

The Times (London), March 2, 1838. "The Late Outrage at Old Ford." The Jane Alsop attack and the Thomas Millbank trial.

The Morning Post, March 7, 1838. The Lucy Scales attack in Limehouse.

The Examiner, March 4, 1838. The Millbank case and magistrates' questioning.

The Times (London), April 14, 1838. Reprint of the Brighton Gazette report on the Rosehill, Sussex gardener incident.

Reference and secondary sources

Wikipedia contributors. "Spring-heeled Jack." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed April 2026.

Wikipedia contributors. "Henry Beresford, 3rd Marquess of Waterford." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed April 2026.

Upton, Chris. "Spring-Heeled Jack." BBC Legacies (archived). Black Country sightings and local context.

Mackley, Jon. "The Return of Spring-Heeled Jack: The Terror of London." jonmackley.com, 2020. Traces the legend's documentation history and flags Haining's fabrications in detail.

Castleton, David. "Spring-Heeled Jack — Did a Fire-Breathing Phantom Haunt Victorian London?" The Serpent's Pen, 2023.

Unresolved.me. "Spring-Heeled Jack." Detailed on the Turner Street incident and the embroidered coat of arms.

Waterford Treasures. "Spring Heeled Jack: Notorious Urban Legend or the Work of the 'Mad Marquess' of Waterford?" waterfordtreasures.com, 2020.

Brewer, E. Cobham. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1880 edition. First published naming of the Marquess of Waterford as the Spring Heeled Jack suspect.

Hey hey, my fellow weirdos… welcome to Loreplay. 🖤

This is the podcast where history gets messy, folklore gets questionable, and I willingly spiral so you don’t have to. I’m your host, Dayna Pereira—your resident investigator of all things creepy, cursed, and deeply side-eye worthy.

Each week, we dig into the stories that make you go “wait… what the hell actually happened?”—from haunted places and urban legends to true crime and historical chaos. We separate fact from fiction… and then stare directly into the uncomfortable space in between.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable—send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here—death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow—and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

And remember…
Just because it’s folklore… doesn’t mean it’s (all) fiction. 😏

Said to have lived between the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Bárbara’s story blends documented history with chilling folklore. Some versions claim she murdered her husband and lover, escaped justice through wealth and influence, and later became the center of horrifying rumors involving missing children and blood rituals tied to youth and beauty.

But here’s the truth: very little of this is firmly documented.
What survives is a story shaped by:

•  colonial power structures 
•  gender expectations 
•  religious fear 
•  and a city built on both wealth and exploitation 

Today, the Arco do Teles remains a real historical site—by day, a bustling corridor; by night, a place many claim still carries echoes of the past.

So was Bárbara a killer… a scapegoat… or something much harder to define?

Let’s step under the arch and find out.

Sources: 

• Ribeiro, Fernando Barata. Crônicas da Polícia e da Vida do Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro: Departamento de Imprensa Nacional, 1958. (the foundational primary source — directly quoted in most modern accounts)
• Rezzutti, Paulo. Mulheres do Brasil: A história não contada. Rio de Janeiro: Leya, 2018.
• Flores, Fernanda. "A lenda de Bárbara dos Prazeres, a prostituta que aterrorizou o Rio de Janeiro." Saiba História, February 12, 2020. saibahistoria.blogspot.com
• "Arco do Teles." Rio Memórias (virtual museum). riomemorias.com.br
• "A lenda de Bárbara dos Prazeres, a temida 'Bruxa do Arco do Teles.'" Brazilian Times, November 11, 2025. braziliantimes.com
• Serqueira, Carlos. "A Bruxa do Arco do Teles." Mapas Antigos, Histórias Curiosas. Referenced via diariodorio.com
• "Roda dos Expostos da Santa Casa de Misericórdia do Rio de Janeiro." História Hoje. historiahoje.com
• "Arco do Teles." FreeWalker Tours Rio. freewalkertours.com
• "Uma história de terror no centro do Rio de Janeiro." Instituto de Longevidade. institutodelongevidade.org
• "Bárbara dos Prazeres: a bruxa que aterrorizou o Arco do Teles." Iconografia da História, February 1, 2021. iconografiadahistoria.com.br

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Spooky? Yes. Funny? Absolutely. A little bit sad if you think about it too hard? Unfortunately also yes.

Sources:
Morris, Willie. Good Old Boy: A Delta Boyhood. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. — This is the one. The book that put the Witch of Yazoo on the map. Semi-autobiographical, beautifully written, and the primary source for the version of the legend most people know. Worth reading in full.

Morris, Willie. Good Old Boy and the Witch of Yazoo. Oxford, MS: Yoknapatawpha Press, 1989. — The sequel, in which Willie and his friends get tangled up with a woman rumored to be the witch's granddaughter and chaos ensues. A delight.

McElreath, Leisa S. and Lindsley, Ashley McElreath. "1904 Destruction of Yazoo City: A Case Study of Community Resilience." 2018. — A genuinely fascinating academic paper about the fire itself and how the town recovered. Available via ResearchGate. If you want the non-supernatural account of what happened, start here.

Yazoo County Convention and Visitors Bureau — The Legend of the Witch of Yazoo. visityazoo.org — The official tourism page, which is somehow both completely earnest and deeply charming. Also has a downloadable map to the grave. Yes, really.

The Clarion-Ledger — "Great fire in Yazoo City." May 25, 1904. — The contemporary newspaper account of the fire. Available digitized via various Mississippi newspaper archives.

The Clarion-Ledger — "The Witch of Yazoo still haunts the town she burned." Therese Apel. October 28, 2014. — A lovely modern piece on how the legend lives in Yazoo City today.

The Yazoo Herald — "It's Time To Bury the Witch of Yazoo for Good." April 4, 1998. — The editorial that prompted Willie Morris to write a letter to the editor at age 63 defending the witch. Iconic behavior.

The Yazoo Herald — "Chained Grave Holds Jealous Wife, Says Longtime Yazoo City Resident." July 5, 1978. — The alternate theory that the grave is actually a woman buried by a controlling husband. Somehow more disturbing than the witch.

Hinds Community College LibGuide — Paranormal Mississippi Case Files: The Witch of Yazoo. libguides.hindscc.edu — A well-sourced academic overview of the legend with the Willie Morris short story text. Great starting point for research.

Country Roads Magazine — "The Witch of Yazoo." September 2025. — A recent retelling with good detail on the oral tradition and the grave itself.

Mississippi Folklore (msfolklore.wordpress.com) — "The Witch of Yazoo." August 2022. — Thorough overview with good historical context on Yazoo City before the legend.

Only in Your State — "The Witch of Yazoo City Is a Mississippi Legend." — Accessible overview with details on the grave's current state.

OTIS (Odd Things I've Seen) — "Deadknobs and Broomsticks: The Witch Grave of Yazoo City." September 2014. — A firsthand account of visiting the grave. I read this one at midnight and do not recommend that.

WANT MORE?

Subscribe to Loreplay wherever you get your podcasts. Rate and review if you're feeling generous — it helps more than you know and costs you nothing except thirty seconds and a little love, which I will accept gratefully and without shame.

Follow along on socials for episode updates, behind-the-scenes chaos, and me spiraling at 1am about whatever legend I'm currently researching.

And if you've ever been to the Witch of Yazoo's grave — if you've rattled those chains or stood in that cemetery at night — I want to hear about it. Slide into my DMs. Tell me everything.

In this episode of Loreplay, host Dayna Pereira dives into the real, documented, court-certified history of the European werewolf trials — the paranoia, the pamphlets, the torture, the confessions, and the people ground up inside the machinery. We're talking official government decrees authorizing citizens to hunt werewolves (yes, that was a real legal document), the most sensationalized and brutal execution of the sixteenth century, and — the story Dayna cannot stop thinking about — the eighty-year-old man who showed up to his own werewolf trial, admitted everything cheerfully, and walked away with twenty lashes because he was simply too chaotic for the court to deal with.

Primary Sources:

• Anonymous. A True Discourse Declaring the Damnable Life and Death of One Stubbe Peeter. London, 1590. [The only surviving record of the Peter Stumpp case — two copies exist, held at the British Museum and Lambeth Library]
• Trial transcript of Thiess of Kaltenbrun, Provincial Court of Venden, April 28, 1691. Hofger-Archiv Kriminalakte n. 30 v. J. 1692. First published by Hermann von Bruiningk in Mitteilungen aus der livländischen Geschichte 22 (1924–28): 203–20. English translation by Bruce Lincoln available via University of Chicago Press: press.uchicago.edu
• Boguet, Henri. Discours des sorciers. Lyon, 1602. [Legal treatise by the Grand Judge who presided over the Gandillon case]
• Fründ, Johannes. Chronicle of the Valais witch trials, c. 1428–1430. [Earliest documented lycanthropy accusations]

Modern Scholarly Works:

• de Blécourt, Willem, ed. Werewolf Histories. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. — The definitive modern academic collection on European werewolf trials
• Ginzburg, Carlo and Bruce Lincoln. Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf: A Classic Case in Comparative Perspective. University of Chicago Press, 2020. — Includes first full English translation of the Thiess trial transcript: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo46813477.html
• Ginzburg, Carlo. The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983
• Scot, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. 1584

Accessible Articles & Further Reading:

• "Before America Had Witch Trials, Europe Had Werewolf Trials" — History.com: history.com/articles/werewolf-trials-europe-witches
• "Werewolf Witch Trials" — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf_witch_trials
• "Gilles Garnier" — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Garnier
• "Peter Stumpp" — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Stumpp
• "Thiess of Kaltenbrun" — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiess_of_Kaltenbrun
• "Beasts and Believers: A History of Werewolf Trials in Early Modern Europe" — DIG History Podcast, October 2025: digpodcast.org/2025/10/26/werewolves/
• "Gandillon Family" — Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology via Encyclopedia.com
• "Jacques Roulet" — Monstrous.com: monstrous.com/jacques-roulet/

🎙️ ABOUT LOREPLAY Loreplay is the comedy-paranormal podcast where haunted history meets hot takes. Host Dayna Pereira is equal parts storyteller and skeptic — blending dark humor, spooky vibes, and genuine historical research into binge-worthy deep dives on ghost stories, folklore, paranormal history, and the weird, dark corners of the past.
New episodes every week. Subscribe so you don't miss one.
📲 TikTok & Instagram: @LoreplayPod 📧 loreplaypod@gmail.com
#werewolftrials #paranormalhistory #darkhistory #loreplay #daynaPereira #werewolf #witchtrials #folklore #hauntedhistory #truecrime #medievalhistory #lycanthropy #spookyhistory #historypodcast #paranormalpodcast

Sources:
John Waller, A Time to Dance, a Time to Die: The Extraordinary Story of the Dancing Plague of 1518 (2008)

Robert Bartholomew & Erich Goode, Mass Hysteria in Schools and Workplaces (2000)

Hecker, Justus Friedrich Karl, The Epidemics of the Middle Ages (1832)

BBC Future – “The Dancing Plague of 1518”

History.com – “Dancing Plague of 1518”

University of Michigan Medical History Center – archival analysis of medieval epidemics

From blood-soaked slippers to baked-into-a-pie revenge plots, this episode unpacks the historical, psychological, and cultural roots of the stories we thought we knew. Spoiler: They were never about the prince. They were about survival.

If you love folklore, dark history, fairy tale origins, mythology, cultural psychology, and the real stories behind Disney classics — this one’s for you.

Sources:
Zipes, Jack. The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre. Princeton University Press, 2012.

Zipes, Jack. The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World. Routledge, 1988.

Tatar, Maria. The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales. Princeton University Press, 1987.

Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. 1976.

Jung, Carl. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. 1959.

Bottigheimer, Ruth B. Fairy Tales: A New History. SUNY Press, 2009.

Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. Kinder- und Hausmärchen. 1812–1857 editions.

Perrault, Charles. Histoires ou contes du temps passé. 1697.

In this episode of Loreplay, we dive into the timeline, suspects, disturbing clues, and the enduring mystery of the Hinterkaifeck Murders — the case where the killer may never have truly left.

Primary historical / investigative

• Bavarian State Police archival investigation files (1922 case records)
• Contemporary German newspaper reports (April 1922 regional coverage)

Books

• Peter Leuschner — Hinterkaifeck: Germany’s Most Mysterious Murder Case
  (considered the definitive investigative reconstruction)

Reliable modern summaries

• Historic Mysteries — Hinterkaifeck case analysis
• CrimeReads historical crime features
• All That’s Interesting — Hinterkaifeck overview
• Smithsonian Magazine (crime history features referencing the case)
• BBC historical crime features (general European unsolved cases)

Academic / criminology discussion

• German criminology retrospective analyses of unresolved 20th-century cases
• Cold case forensic review conducted by the Fürstenfeldbruck Police Academy (2007 student review project)

What began as whispers of cruelty turned into full-blown horror after an 1834 fire exposed something so disturbing it sent an entire city into a violent frenzy. We’ll walk through the confirmed history, the rumors that grew in the shadows, the alleged medical experimentation, the mob destruction, and the long list of owners who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—stay.

From enslaved victims whose voices were erased, to reports of screaming walls, shadow figures, and restless spirits, this episode asks the uncomfortable question: When a house witnesses evil… does it remember?

Listener discretion advised—this one’s dark, historical, and not for the faint of heart.

• The Times-Picayune (1834 fire reports and court records)
• Harriet Martineau – Retrospect of Western Travel (1838)
• George Washington Cable – historical essays on New Orleans society
• Henry Castellanos – New Orleans As It Was
• Jeanne deLavigne – Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans (1946)
• Louisiana State Archives – court documents regarding Delphine LaLaurie
• Smithsonian Magazine – historical context on slavery in New Orleans
• New Orleans Historic Collection (HNOC)
• Library of Congress archives on 19th-century Louisiana newspapers
• Wikepedia- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphine_LaLaurie

Coincidence? Bad luck? Or did they anger something ancient, royal, and deeply petty?

In this episode of Loreplay, Dayna Pereira cracks open the legend of The Curse of the Pharaoh—the supposed supernatural punishment that followed those who disturbed King Tut’s tomb. We trace how the curse myth began, who actually died (and who absolutely did not), and why the media latched onto the story like it was the original clickbait headline.

Was this divine revenge from beyond the grave—or just a perfect storm of bad timing, poor medical care, and dramatic storytelling?

Grab your emotional support scarab and join us as we separate myth from mummy dust in one of history’s most enduring spooky legends.

Sources & Further Reading

• British Museum – King Tut Collection & Tomb History
• National Geographic – Articles on the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb and the curse myth
• Smithsonian Institution – Scientific explanations for the so-called curse
• BBC – Historical coverage on Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon
• Journal of the American Medical Association – Research on tomb bacteria and fungal spores
• The Tomb of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter
• Oxford University Press – Egyptology and funerary belief research
• History – Overviews of the curse legend and excavation aftermath

In this episode of Loreplay, Dayna Pereira unpacks the chaos of the Black Death—the pandemic that wiped out up to half of Europe—and the extreme (and often unhinged) ways people tried to survive it. From bloodletting and snake remedies to emeralds, unicorn lore, and cooked chicken applied to plague sores, medieval medicine was doing its most… experimental.

As Venice struggled to protect itself, it pioneered quarantine and sent the sick to a small island in the lagoon: Poveglia Island. Over centuries, the island became a quarantine zone, mass burial ground, and later the site of a psychiatric hospital—cementing its reputation as one of the most haunted places in the world.

Plague, paranoia, ghost stories, and generational trauma baked into the soil—this is the story of how fear shaped public health, folklore, and one island no one wants to visit.

Dark history. Questionable medicine. Lingering ghosts.
 Welcome to Loreplay.
Historical Plague & Medicine

• Benedictow, Ole J. The Black Death 1346–1353: The Complete History (Boydell Press)
• BBC History – “The Black Death”
   https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/black_01.shtml
• National Geographic – “How the Black Death Changed the World”
   https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/black-death

Poveglia Island History

• Smithsonian Magazine – “The Plague Island of Poveglia”
   https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/plague-island-poveglia-180974071/
• Atlas Obscura – “Poveglia Island”
   https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/poveglia-island
• Italy Magazine – “Poveglia: Venice’s Most Haunted Island”
   https://www.italymagazine.com/featured-story/poveglia-venices-most-haunted-island

Quarantine & Venetian Public Health

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – History of Quarantine
   https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/historyquarantine.html
• Snowden, Frank M. Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present (Yale University Press)
• Podcasts: Lets Get Haunted

Opened in the mid-1800s as a progressive mental health hospital, the asylum was designed to heal through light, fresh air, and compassion. What it became instead was a cautionary monument to overcrowding, neglect, and what happens when care turns into control.

As patient numbers exploded from a few hundred to well over two thousand, treatment methods shifted from moral therapy to restraint, sedation, and experimentation. Patients slept in hallways. Violent and non-violent individuals were mixed together. Understaffed wards relied on isolation cells, forced labor, electroshock therapy, insulin shock therapy, and lobotomies—often performed on people whose greatest crime was being inconvenient, impoverished, traumatized, or simply different.

We explore documented patient cases, the rise of medical “solutions” that caused more harm than healing, and how the asylum’s history reflects broader societal fears about mental illness, gender, class, and control. And, because this is Loreplay, we also examine what lingered after the doors closed—reported hauntings, unexplained phenomena, and why so many believe the building never truly emptied.

This isn’t just a ghost story.
 It’s a story about people who were silenced, mislabeled, and forgotten—
 and the institution that was supposed to save them.

• Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum Official Site
   https://trans-alleghenylunaticasylum.com
• West Virginia Division of Culture and History
   https://wvculture.org
• Kirkbride, Thomas S. On the Construction, Organization, and General Arrangements of Hospitals for the Insane (1854)
• Mental Health America – History of Mental Illness Treatment
   https://mhanational.org
• Smithsonian Magazine – History of Lobotomies
   https://www.smithsonianmag.com
• National Library of Medicine – Insulin Shock Therapy
   https://www.nlm.nih.gov
• U.S. National Archives – Institutional Records & Census Data
• Contemporary interviews and archival materials cited by:
  • West Virginia University Archives
  • Ohio County Public Library historical collections

While it sounds like folklore or horror fiction, this practice was very real—occurring primarily between the 17th and 19th centuries in Europe and the United States. It was most often carried out not by occultists or criminals, but by doctors, judges, and institutions with legal and social power.

🧍‍♀️ Mary Lynch & Dr. John Stockton Hough

Mary Lynch was a young Irish immigrant who died in 1869 at Philadelphia General Hospital. She was poor, severely ill with tuberculosis, and unclaimed at death—circumstances that made her body legally accessible to medical authorities.

After performing her autopsy, physician Dr. John Stockton Hough removed portions of her skin and later used it to bind three medical books, all dealing with female reproduction and health. Hough wrote inscriptions inside the books identifying the bindings as human skin and referencing Mary’s death. There is no evidence Mary consented to this use of her body.

These books are now held by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and have been scientifically tested and confirmed to be bound in human skin.

🏛️ Harvard & Des destinées de l’âme

One of the most well-known anthropodermic books is Des destinées de l’âme (The Destinies of the Soul), a 19th-century philosophical work by Arsène Houssaye. The book was gifted to physician Ludovic Bouland, who later bound it in the skin of an unnamed female patient who died in a French psychiatric hospital.

Bouland left a handwritten note stating that “a book about the human soul deserved a human covering.”

In 2014, Harvard University used peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF) to scientifically confirm that the binding was human skin. After extensive ethical review, Harvard announced in 2024 that the human skin had been removed from the book and placed into respectful care, acknowledging past mishandling of human remains.

🔪 Criminal Punishment & Skin Binding

Some anthropodermic books were created using the skin of executed criminals, often bound around:

• Trial transcripts
• Confessions
• Accounts of crimes

This practice was intended as an extension of punishment beyond death and was widely accepted within certain legal and medical frameworks of the time.

One example discussed is William Corder, convicted of the Red Barn Murder, whose skin was used to bind books about his crime after his execution.

🛣️ James Allen (George Walton): Consent Case

James Allen, a 19th-century highwayman also known as George Walton, represents a rare documented case of explicit consent. After attempting to rob John Fenno and being sentenced to life in prison, Allen wrote a detailed confession and requested that his own skin be used to bind the manuscript after his death.

The request was honored in 1837, and the finished book was delivered to Fenno—Allen’s intended victim. This book still exists and is often cited as the clearest example of voluntary anthropodermic bibliopegy.

🧠 Burke & Hare

In 1820s Edinburgh, William Burke and William Hare murdered at least sixteen people to sell their bodies to anatomists. After Burke’s execution in 1829, his body was publicly dissected, and portions of his skin were preserved and used to create at least one book attributed to his remains.

Fragments of Burke’s body, including his skeleton and skin artifacts, are still held in Scottish collections today.

👻 Hauntings & Cultural Aftermath

There are no verified paranormal hauntings directly associated with anthropodermic books. However, museum staff and visitors have reported feelings of unease, nausea, emotional heaviness, or discomfort when handling or viewing such objects—particularly after learning their origins.

Modern scholars emphasize that the true “haunting” lies not in ghosts, but in how long these objects were treated as curiosities rather than human remains.

🔗 SOURCES & FURTHER READING

(Highly credible, museum- and academic-backed)

Primary & Academic Sources

• College of Physicians of Philadelphia – Historical Medical Library
  “The Skin She Lived In”
  https://histmed.collegeofphysicians.org/skin-she-lived-in/
• Anthropodermic Book Project
  https://anthropodermicbooks.org/
• University of Delaware – Anomalous Books Project
  https://sites.udel.edu/anomalousbooks/books-human-skin/

Journalism & Secondary Sources

• NPR – “Dark Archives Explores the Use of Human Skin in Bookbinding”
  https://www.npr.org/2020/10/21/925832512/dark-archives-explores-the-use-of-human-skin-in-bookbinding
• Smithsonian Magazine – Harvard Human Skin Book Removal
  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-book-bound-with-human-skin-spent-90-years-in-harvards-library-now-the-binding-has-been-removed-180984057/
• Harvard Library – Statement on Human Remains in Collections (2024)
  https://library.harvard.edu/about/news/harvard-library-statement-human-remains-collections

Historical Cases

• James Allen / George Walton Skin-Bound Confession
  Boston Athenaeum holdings
  https://www.bostonathenaeum.org/collections
• William Burke & Hare
  National Museums Scotland
  https://www.nms.ac.uk/

This episode of Loreplay dives into the infamous Red Barn Murder, the brutal killing of Maria Marten, a young woman from Polstead, Suffolk, whose disappearance was blamed on shame, gossip, and her own supposed moral failings… until her body was discovered buried beneath the floor of a blood-red barn.

Maria had been involved with William Corder, a serial liar, emotional manipulator, and walking red flag in breeches. Pregnant and under immense social pressure, Maria was persuaded to meet Corder at the Red Barn under the pretense that they would elope. She was told to disguise herself as a man to avoid scandal—a choice that would later be twisted into suspicion against her.

She was never seen alive again.

For months, Corder sent letters to Maria’s family claiming she was safe, married, and living happily elsewhere. Meanwhile, her stepmother began having vivid dreams—dreams that repeatedly pointed to the Red Barn as Maria’s final resting place. When authorities finally searched the barn, they uncovered Maria’s remains, wrapped and buried beneath the floor.

Corder fled, was captured, and put on trial in 1828. The case became a full-blown media frenzy: courtroom drama, pamphlets, ballads, stage plays, souvenirs, and public spectacle. After his execution by hanging, Corder’s body was dissected—and in a final macabre twist, portions of his skin were reportedly used to bind a book documenting his crime.

This episode examines the murder itself, the circus that followed, and the deeper truth beneath the sensationalism: Maria Marten was not careless or foolish—she was trapped by class, gender, and a society that offered men exits and women dead ends.

The Red Barn didn’t kill Maria.

It just became the place where everything that failed her finally met.

Show Sources:
BBC News – The Red Barn Murder: England’s most notorious killing
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0wrdleer2o

Wikipedia – Red Barn Murder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Barn_Murder

Mental Floss – The Chilling Story of the Red Barn Murder
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/569826/red

Historic UK – The Red Barn Murder
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Red-Barn-Murder/

The British Library – Crime broadsides & execution ephemera related to the Red Barn Murder
https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/crime-broadsides

In this darkly festive deep dive, host Dayna Pereira unwraps the chilling folklore of Krampus, the horned, chain-rattling nightmare who shows up every December not to deliver gifts—but to dish out consequences. Long before Santa became a jolly capitalist mascot, Krampus was roaming Alpine villages, terrorizing children, beating the naughty with birch rods, stuffing the worst offenders into his sack, and, depending on the legend, dragging them off to hell… or something arguably worse.

This episode explores the brutal folklore behind Krampusnacht, the cultural role of fear in child-rearing, and why European Christmas traditions were historically less “holiday cheer” and more “behave or be taken into the mountains.” We dig into centuries-old stories of children who vanished after misbehaving, the symbolism behind Krampus’ animalistic appearance, and how pagan winter spirits survived Christianization by simply putting on a festive disguise.

Along the way, we examine Krampus’ possible connections to older Alpine figures like Frau Perchta, unpack the rise (and chaos) of modern Krampuslauf celebrations, and ask the most important question of all:
Why was everyone in history so comfortable terrifying children at Christmas?

Dark, creepy, historically grounded—and just unhinged enough to make you grateful your parents only threatened to call Santa—this episode proves once again that the holidays used to be feral.

So light a candle, lock your doors, and remember: Santa watches…
But Krampus acts.

Sources:
National Geographic – The Dark History of Krampus

Smithsonian Magazine – The Alpine Origins of Krampus

Britannica – Krampus: European Folklore

Jacob Grimm – Teutonic Mythology

Alpine Folklore Archives (Austria & Bavaria)

University of Innsbruck Folklore Studies

Hilda Ellis Davidson – Roles of the Northern Goddess

Maria Tatar – The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales

Known for roaming the countryside during the Twelve Nights of Christmas, Perchta rewarded the diligent, punished the lazy, and allegedly slit open the bellies of naughty children to stuff them with straw and rocks. Festive! But beneath the gore and goat-footed nightmare fuel lies a fascinating story of pre-Christian goddesses, household rituals, seasonal transition, and the Church’s long tradition of demonizing powerful women.

This episode explores Perchta’s many forms—from radiant White Lady to grotesque belly-slasher—her connection to spinning, fertility, and the Wild Hunt, and how she slowly morphed from respected folkloric figure into holiday horror icon. Along the way, we unpack why medieval Europe was so obsessed with winter demons, why chores were apparently a matter of life and death, and how Perchta may have helped inspire figures like Krampus, Frau Holle, and even the concept of Santa’s “naughty list.”

So grab a warm drink, finish your spinning, and prepare to be judged—because Frau Perchta is coming, and she will be checking your vibes.

Sources & Further Reading

• Grimm, Jacob. Teutonic Mythology. (1883)
• Lecouteux, Claude. Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and the Ghostly Processions of the Undead
• Lecouteux, Claude. The Tradition of Household Spirits: Ancestral Lore and Practices
• Hutton, Ronald. The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles
• Barber, Elizabeth Wayland. Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years
• Österreichisches Museum für Volkskunde (Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art) archives
• Encyclopaedia Britannica – entries on Perchta, Frau Holle, and Alpine folklore
• Simek, Rudolf. Dictionary of Northern Mythology
• Kvideland, Reimund & Henning K. Sehmsdorf. Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend

In this episode, we explore the historical accounts from medieval chroniclers William of Newburgh and Ralph of Coggeshall, examine the children’s strange behavior, and unpack the girl’s chilling description of her homeland — a dim world known as the Land of St. Martin where the sun never shines and everyone has green skin.

We break down the most compelling explanations behind this unsolved historical mystery, including:

• Flemish refugee theory
• Fairy folklore and British supernatural traditions
• Parallel dimension theories / interdimensional slip
• Time anomalies and medieval “thin places”
• Nutritional and environmental explanations for green skin

Was this a case of misunderstood medieval immigration? A brush with the fairy realm? A supernatural phenomenon? A glitch in reality? Or one of the earliest recorded examples of interdimensional travelers in British history?

If you’re obsessed with unsolved historical cases, English folklore, paranormal mysteries, fairy lore, or stories that make you go “What the actual medieval hell did I just listen to?”, this episode of Loreplay is going to be your new favorite rabbit hole.

Step into one of the strangest folklore mysteries ever documented: the Green Children of Woolpit, a real historical event recorded by twelfth-century chroniclers that continues to stump historians, folklorists, and paranormal researchers today.

In this Loreplay episode, we uncover the truth behind the mysterious green-skinned children who appeared in Woolpit, England, speaking an unknown language and claiming to come from a land of eternal twilight. Was this bizarre medieval event rooted in fairy folklore, a parallel dimension, a hidden isolated community, or a supernatural glitch in the fabric of reality?

Perfect for fans of: weird history, folklore podcasts, paranormal podcasts, unsolved enigmas, English legends, mysterious children legends, and medieval supernatural encounters.

Keywords: Green Children of Woolpit, folklore podcast, paranormal podcast, supernatural folklore, weird history podcast, medieval legends, mysterious children story, English paranormal history, fairy realm folklore, historical mysteries explained.
Primary Medieval Sources

• William of Newburgh — Historia Rerum Anglicarum (Green Children of Woolpit account)
• Ralph of Coggeshall — Chronicon Anglicanum (firsthand documentation of Woolpit mystery)

Folklore & History Scholarship

• John Clark, “The Green Children of Woolpit” — Folklore Journal
• Jacqueline Simpson — British Folklore and the Supernatural
• Ronald Hutton — Pagan Britain & The Stations of the Sun
• Thomas Keightley — The Fairy Mythology

Modern Analyses

• Fortean Times — “Children From the Dark: The Woolpit Mystery”
• Suffolk Archaeological Society Papers
• Medical research on chlorosis & hypochromic anemia
• Geological surveys of Suffolk chalk caves & cavern acoustics

This episode dives into the crumbling social order of early-17th-century England, where famine, disease, political paranoia, and neighborly grudges created the perfect storm for witchcraft accusations. We unpack the lives of Demdike, Chattox, Alizon Device, Old Mother Nutter, and the rest of the so-called witches who were swept up in a tale of curses, confessions, and good old-fashioned government fearmongering.

From “soft torture” in the Lancaster Gaol, to a ten-year-old child testifying against her entire family, to King James I obsessively hunting witches like he was trying to complete some kind of satanic Pokémon set — this story has everything.

It’s eerie. It’s tragic. It’s wildly human.
 And in true Loreplay fashion, I’ll make you laugh at least twice before you gasp out loud.
Primary & Historical Sources

• Thomas Potts, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster (1613).
  The official contemporary account of the trials. Biased and prosecutorial, but essential.
• James I, Daemonologie (1597).
  The king’s witch-hunting bible that set the tone for the era.

Academic Books & Articles

• Sharpe, James. The Lancashire Witches: Histories and Stories. Manchester University Press.
  A deep academic look at the social and political context.
• Barstow, Anne Llewellyn. Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts.
  Helpful for understanding the larger witch-hunt framework.
• Goodare, Julian. “The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context.” Manchester University Press.
  Contextualizes James I’s influence and policy shaping.
• Essex, Helen. “Re-evaluating Confessions in the Pendle Witch Trials.” (Essex Open Access Research).
  Discussions of coercion, interrogation, and credibility.

Modern Summaries & Museum Resources

• The Lancashire Museums / Lancaster Castle official archives
  Context for the gaol, conditions, and trial procedures.
• The Pendle Witch Visitor Centre & Official Pendle Witches Trail
  Modern historical interpretations, maps, and family histories.
• BBC History: “The Pendle Witches.”
  A concise overview of events with standard UK scholarship.

Secondary Sources / Journalism

• The Guardian: “Pendle witches: the story”
  Modern analysis and historical re-evaluation.
• History Today articles on 17th-century witchcraft and trial standards

From childhood dares in the woods… to abandoned tunnels… to unethical medical experiments… to the disappearances of multiple children… this episode unpacks how an urban legend stopped being folklore and started feeling uncomfortably real.

Dayna dives into:

• The original pre–Andre Rand versions of Cropsey
• The creation, collapse, and absolute hellscape of Willowbrook
• The hepatitis experiments (aka: “science said WHAT?”)
• Geraldo Rivera blowing the lid off the institution
• The disappearances that shook Staten Island
• Andre Rand’s crimes, accusations, and the cases still unsolved
• How myth, trauma, and institutional failure fused into one terrifying narrative

Equal parts horror, heartbreak, and “holy-shit-how-was-this-real,” this episode is a reminder that sometimes the scariest legends are built on top of real places where real people were failed.

Turn off the lights. Lock your doors. And let’s go find the line where folklore ends… and monsters begin.

SHOW NOTES

Trigger Warnings:

This episode contains discussions of child abuse, neglect, institutional abuse, unethical medical experiments, kidnapping, and the deaths/disappearances of children.

Topics Covered:

• History of the Cropsey urban legend
• Early folklore origins of Cropsey (pre–Andre Rand)
• Founding and deterioration of the Willowbrook State School (1947–1987)
• Conditions inside Willowbrook
• The hepatitis experiments conducted by Dr. Saul Krugman
• Geraldo Rivera’s 1972 exposé
• The disappearance cases of:
  • Alice Pereira (1972)
  • Holly Ann Hughes (1981)
  • Tiahease Jackson (1983)
  • Henry Gafforio (1984)
  • Jennifer Schweiger (1987)
• The arrest and convictions of Andre Rand
• The 2009 Cropsey documentary
• Modern interpretations, hauntings, and how the legend persists

Sources & Further Reading:

(Note: these are clean, reputable sources suitable for show notes. No need for academic citation formatting.)

• “Cropsey” (2009) – Documentary by Joshua Zeman & Barbara Brancaccio
• Geraldo Rivera’s 1972 Willowbrook exposé (ABC/Local Eyewitness News)
• New York State Archives – Willowbrook State School Records
• The New York Times coverage of Willowbrook (1960s–1980s)
• The Disability Rights Movement & The Willowbrook Consent Decree
• New York Daily News & Staten Island Advance reporting on the Rand cases
• Saul Krugman’s published hepatitis studies (1950s–1970s), archived medical journals

Support the Show:

If this episode creeped you out, educated you, or ruined your ability to walk near a storm drain ever again, leave Loreplay a 5-star review and share the episode with your favorite spooky-loving friend.

Send your WTF Wednesday stories to loreplaypod@gmail.com

Travel back to 1897 in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, where newlywed Zona Heaster Shue dies under suspicious circumstances… and her mother refuses to buy the “it was natural causes” excuse that the town doctor offered while he was practically doing a speed-run autopsy in reverse. After four nights of bone-cracking ghostly visits, Zona reveals the truth: her husband killed her, and she wants justice.

This episode blends historical research, paranormal evidence, Appalachian folklore, and classic Loreplay humor, taking you through everything from the shady husband’s red flags to the séance-level mother-daughter determination that cracked the case wide open.

If you love haunted history, true crime with a paranormal twist, Appalachian ghost stories, or tales of women who refuse to be quiet even in death—this one’s a must-listen.

Perfect for fans of: ghost stories, historical hauntings, creepy folklore, murder mysteries, supernatural investigations, Appalachian legends, true crime meets paranormal podcasts.

📚 Sources for This Episode

Primary Historical Sources

• Greenbrier Independent Newspaper (January–April 1897) – Original reporting on Zona Heaster Shue’s death and the trial of Erasmus Stribbling Shue.
• West Virginia Archives & History: “The Greenbrier Ghost” – Comprehensive archival summary compiled from legal records, newspaper articles, and oral history.
• Court Records of the State of West Virginia vs. Erasmus Stribbling Shue (1897) – Trial testimony, including depositions referencing Mary Jane Heaster’s ghost encounters.
• Greenbrier County Historical Society – Local collected folklore and legal history of the case.

Books & Academic References

• Deitz, Dennis. The Greenbrier Ghost and Other Strange Stories. – The most commonly cited narrative collection including the events surrounding Zona’s death.
• Humphrey, Michael. Haunted West Virginia: Ghost Stories and Legends. – Contains a full retelling with historical context about Appalachian spiritual beliefs.
• Ruth Ann Musick. The Telltale Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Tales. – Canonical Appalachian folklore source referencing the cultural backdrop of the case.
• Kenny, Hamill. West Virginia Place Names. – Provides regional and cultural context for the people, geography, and customs of Greenbrier County.

Articles, Essays & Museum Resources

• Smithsonian Magazine – “The True Story of the Greenbrier Ghost” (feature on folklore, legal precedent, and the trial).
• Appalachian History Journal – “How a Ghost Helped Solve a Murder in 1897.”
• National Registry of Historic Places – Greenbrier County Listings – Locations relevant to the case (courthouse, historical sites).
• West Virginia Folklore Journal – Entries referencing Mary Jane Heaster’s accounts and Appalachian ghost-belief traditions.

Local & Cultural Sources

• Greenbrier County Convention & Visitors Bureau – Historical markers + local oral histories.
• Meadow Bluff / Livesay’s Mill Region Historical Notes – Context for the Shue residence and community in the 1890s.
• West Virginia State Folklorists’ Oral History Projects – Interviews with descendants and locals retelling the Greenbrier Ghost legend.

Hey hey, my lore-loving fiends — tonight we’re heading back to 16th-century Hungary, where leeches were skincare, torture was trending, and one noblewoman’s beauty routine allegedly involved… her staff.

Elizabeth Báthory — better known as The Blood Countess — has been called history’s most prolific female serial killer, accused of torturing and murdering hundreds of girls to preserve her youth. But how much of it is true… and how much was cooked up by jealous nobles, political rivals, and a patriarchal empire that didn’t love a woman with her own money and opinions?

In this full-bodied (and occasionally blood-soaked) deep dive, we unravel the legend — from her aristocratic upbringing and dark castle years, to the sensational trial that never was, and the centuries of myth-making that turned her into the world’s most infamous vampire countess.

Was she a monster? A myth? Or just a woman whose story bled out of control?
 Pour a glass of red — preferably cabernet, not chambermaid — and join host Dayna Pereira for a hilarious, horrifying, and historically accurate descent into the legend of Elizabeth Báthory.

Primary Sources:
• The Trial of Erzsébet Báthory (Hungarian State Archives, 1611)
• Letters of György Thurzó to King Matthias II (1610–1611)
• Jesuit tracts: Tragoediae Epistolae de Crudelissima Bathoryana (1729)

Secondary Sources:
 • McNally, Raymond T. — Dracula Was a Woman: In Search of the Blood Countess of Transylvania (McGraw-Hill, 1983)
• Craft, Kimberly L. — Infamous Lady: The True Story of Countess Erzsébet Báthory (2009)
• Penrose, Valentine — The Bloody Countess (Creation Books, 1996)
• Nagy, László — A History of Hungary (Corvina, 1998)

Pop Culture & Media:
 • Countess Dracula (Hammer Films, 1971)
• The Countess (Julie Delpy, 2009)
• American Horror Story: Hotel (FX, 2015)
• Castlevania (Konami Series)

In this episode of Loreplay, Dayna Pereira dives deep into the origins of the Dybbuk legend in Jewish mysticism, the true story behind Kevin Mannis’s eBay listing, and the chaos that followed — from Jason Haxton’s museum hauntings to Zak Bagans’s on-camera meltdown and the infamous Post Malone curse.

We break down the folklore, the fear, and the fine line between cultural myth and collective psychosis — because when enough people believe in something, even the internet can make it real.

Mannis, Kevin. Original eBay Listing for “Haunted Dybbuk Box.” (2003, archived on paranormal-collector forums and Wayback Machine)

Haxton, Jason. The Dibbuk Box. Truman State University Press, 2011.

Ansky, S. The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds. (1914; English translation, 1926)

The Jewish Virtual Library. “Dybbuk (Dibbuk).” JewishVirtualLibrary.org

Zak Bagans. Ghost Adventures: Quarantine — Episode 4, “Dybbuk Box: The Opening.” Discovery+, 2020.

Bagans, Zak & Haxton, Jason. Interviews via Las Vegas Review-Journal (June 2020).

Post Malone on Late Night with Seth Meyers. NBC, Oct. 2018.

Snopes.com. “Was the Dybbuk Box a Real Jewish Relic?” (2021).

LiveScience. “The Science of Haunted Objects and the Nocebo Effect.” (2022).

Haaretz. “The Real Story of the Dybbuk and How Pop Culture Got It Wrong.” (2019).
Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dybbuk_box

Before the Tube, before streetlights, and definitely before therapy, the sleepy village of Hammersmith found itself haunted — not by one restless spirit, but by a whole lot of mass hysteria.

It started with an elderly woman scared literally to death near the churchyard… then a brewer’s servant named Thomas Groom who got hands-on with the ghost (and lived to tell the tale)… and a pregnant woman whose brush with the apparition nearly sent her into early labor.

Cue the fog, the fear, and a full-blown neighborhood patrol of armed ghost hunters.
 One of them, Francis Smith, set out to catch the phantom — and instead, shot a very real man named Thomas Millwood.

Welcome to one of England’s strangest true crimes — the first time someone in court tried to argue:

From hysteria to homicide, from gossip to the Old Bailey, we’re unraveling how superstition, fear, and a good old-fashioned case of “maybe don’t shoot the undead” turned London upside down.

So grab your torches, charge your crystals, and let’s step into the fog… because this is Loreplay: where haunted gets hot and bothered with history.

📜 Show Notes & Sources

🧩 The Real Story

• The Hammersmith Ghost panic began in late 1803, when reports surfaced of a white-shrouded figure haunting the Hammersmith churchyard in West London.
• The Elderly Woman reportedly collapsed in terror after seeing the apparition and died days later (The Times, Jan 1804).
• Thomas Groom, a brewer’s servant, claimed the ghost grabbed him by the throat while walking with a friend near the churchyard (Annual Register, 1804).
• The Pregnant Woman was said to have been attacked by the ghost, collapsing in fright and falling dangerously ill — possibly going into early labor (Morning Chronicle, Jan 1804).
• Night Watchman William Girdler later chased the ghost down Beaver Lane, claiming it “threw off its shroud and disappeared.”
• Francis Smith, believing he was protecting the town, fatally shot Thomas Millwood, a 29-year-old bricklayer wearing white work clothes — mistaking him for the ghost.
• The case went to the Old Bailey in January 1804, where Smith was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
  • His sentence was later commuted to one year of hard labor, after public outrage.
• The verdict led to ongoing debates about “mistaken identity” and the legal definition of intent, influencing English criminal law for decades.

📚 Primary & Historical Sources

• The Times (London), January 1804
• The Morning Chronicle, January 1804
• Annual Register of 1804: “Extraordinary Occurrences”
• Old Bailey Proceedings Online (Trial of Francis Smith, 1804)
• London’s Ghosts: Strange Tales from the Capital by Peter Ackroyd (2007)
• Curious Cases and Ghostly Tales of Old London by Charles Mackay (1858)
• The Hammersmith Ghost and the Law of Murder — The Criminal Law Review (1958)

💀 Loreplay Deep Dive Topics

• Victorian ghost panics & moral hysteria
• Early 19th-century policing in London (pre-Metropolitan Police)
• The legal concept of “malice aforethought”
• Ghost lore in the Age of Enlightenment
• The class tension behind “working men with guns”
• The legacy of the Hammersmith case in modern criminal law

🔮 Fun Facts

• Some historians believe the “ghost” was actually a shoemaker named John Graham, who confessed to dressing up in a white sheet to scare apprentices.
• The story inspired numerous stage plays and penny dreadfuls in the 1800s.
• The Hammersmith ghost legend was revived again in the 1820s — because London loves a sequel.

The twins, Gillian and Jennifer, began recalling memories, places, and experiences they couldn’t possibly have known. They recognized landmarks in a town they’d never visited, talked about “their other lives,” and one even bore the same birthmarks and scars as her late sister. Was this the most compelling modern case of reincarnation — or a story shaped by grief, coincidence, and a father’s desperate need to believe?

In this episode of Loreplay, we head across the pond to Hexham, England, where science, spirituality, and straight-up spooky collide. We’ll dig into the documented accounts by psychiatrist Dr. Ian Stevenson, the skepticism that followed, and the unnerving details that still stump researchers today.

Grab your tea, maybe light a candle (or an incense stick, if you’re feeling metaphysical), and prepare for one of the strangest tales of déjà vu the afterlife ever wrote twice.

🔍 Show Notes & Sources:

(For listeners who love a good rabbit hole — these are the primary and reputable sources used in the research for this episode.)

1. Stevenson, Ian (1966). Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. University of Virginia Press.
   • Chapter 6 documents the Pollock Twins case in detail, based on Stevenson’s direct interviews with the family in the 1960s.
2. Playfair, Guy Lyon (2006). The Indefinite Boundary: An Investigation into Psychic Phenomena.
   • Includes references to British reincarnation reports, including Hexham.
3. BBC Archive (2003). “The Pollock Twins: Reincarnation in Hexham.” BBC Radio 4, Beyond Belief.
   • Broadcast discussing the case with theologians and psychologists.
4. Bowman, Carol (1997). Children’s Past Lives: How Past Life Memories Affect Your Child.
   • Discusses parallels between the Pollock twins and other child reincarnation cases studied globally.
5. Journal of Scientific Exploration (Vol. 12, No. 3, 1998). “Reincarnation Research: An Overview.”
   • Scholarly analysis of Stevenson’s methods and criticisms from contemporary researchers.
6. The Hexham Courant (1957–1960 archives).
   • Local reports on the Pollock family’s accident and community response, preserved in regional historical records.
7. The Society for Psychical Research (SPR).
   • Archives include correspondence and investigation notes referencing the Pollock case.
8. Extrasensory Podcast

From the gallows of Edinburgh’s Grassmarket to the birth of her legend as “Half-Hangit Maggie,” this episode blends dark history with gallows humor (literally). You’ll learn how a young woman’s secret, a botched execution, and a very loose understanding of “death” turned her into one of Scotland’s most enduring folk heroines.

Was it divine intervention? A medical fluke? Or just the universe saying, “Not today, Satan”? Grab a pint and find out why this ghost story isn’t about death at all — it’s about defiance.

Tune in to Loreplay — where haunted gets hot and bothered with history, and the dead don’t always stay quiet.

Primary Historical References

• “The Trial and Execution of Margaret Dickson” – The Scots Magazine, 1724 archives
• National Records of Scotland: Criminal Trials and Sentences, Edinburgh, 1723-1724
• Edinburgh Grassmarket Historical Society, “Public Executions and Folklore of the Gallows” (local history publication, 2019)
• Old Edinburgh Tales by Robert Chambers (1858)
• Scottish Criminal Cases: The Curious Case of Half-Hangit Maggie, BBC Scotland History Archives, 2017
• The Scotsman – “How Half-Hangit Maggie Survived the Gallows,” May 2020 feature
• VisitScotland.com — “Maggie Dickson’s Pub, Grassmarket”

Supplementary Reading & Tourism Sources

• Edinburgh City Archives: Grassmarket Gallows Map (18th-century execution records)
• Haunted Edinburgh by J.A. Brooks (Amberley Publishing, 2015)
• The Ghosts of Scotland by Peter Underwood (Borgo Press, 1992)
• Oral folklore interviews collected by The School of Scottish Studies Archives, University of Edinburgh

Music & Sound Credits (if applicable)

• Ambient market sounds and gallows atmosphere: Epidemic Sound
• Historical reenactment voice clips: Public domain / Creative Commons

🔗 LINKS

🎧 Listen to all episodes at loreplaypod.com

📸 Follow @LoreplayPod on Instagram & TikTok
🍺 Visit Maggie Dickson’s Pub, Grassmarket, Edinburgh — and toast to the woman who refused to stay dead.

From Cottage City, Maryland to St. Louis, Missouri, follow the chilling (and occasionally ridiculous) journey of a family haunted by unexplained scratches, flying furniture, guttural voices, and a bed that wouldn’t stop shaking. Meet the real priests behind the ritual—Father Albert Hughes, Father Raymond Bishop, and Father William Bowdern—and discover how one terrified teenager became the blueprint for Hollywood’s most infamous horror film.

Was it true possession, psychological trauma, or the most dramatic case of grief-fueled chaos in suburban history? Dayna unpacks it all with her signature mix of dark humor, history, and sass in this must-listen deep dive into the original exorcism that started it all.
Show Notes / Sources:

• Thomas B. Allen, Possessed: The True Story of an Exorcism (1993) – Primary narrative source using Father Raymond Bishop’s diary notes from the 1949 St. Louis case.
• Father Raymond J. Bishop, S.J., Diary of the 1949 Exorcism – Archival source referenced by St. Louis University archives and Jesuit historical summaries.
• St. Louis University Archives (Jesuit Historical Institute) – Timeline and background on the priests involved and the documented exorcism events.
• Washington Post, “The Exorcist’s Real-Life Inspiration Dies at 85” (Oct. 2021) – Report linking Roland Doe’s true identity to NASA engineer Ronald Edwin Hunkeler.
• Smithsonian Magazine, “The Real Story Behind The Exorcist” (2013) – Historical overview of the case’s cultural impact.
• The New York Times Archives, coverage of The Exorcist (1973) release and public fascination with the real 1949 possession.
• Catholic News Agency, “The Real Exorcism That Inspired The Exorcist” (2019) – Clerical records and Vatican commentary on the St. Louis case.

What really happened inside the most famous haunted house in America? In this episode of Loreplay, host Dayna Pereira digs into the chilling story of the Amityville Horror—where true crime meets the paranormal.

First, we revisit the shocking 1974 DeFeo family murders that left six dead inside 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. Then we dive into the terrifying claims of George and Kathy Lutz, who lasted only 28 days before fleeing the house in fear. From swarms of flies in winter, to walls that oozed slime, to a demon pig with glowing eyes, the Amityville haunting became one of the most infamous paranormal cases in history.

But was the Amityville Horror real—or the ultimate haunted house hoax? We’ll explore the books, movies, court cases, and investigations by Ed and Lorraine Warren, skeptics, and reporters that turned this Long Island murder house into a global phenomenon.

If you love haunted house stories, true crime murders, creepy paranormal encounters, and spooky legends that blend fact with fiction, this episode is for you.

📚 Sources for Show Notes

• Anson, Jay. The Amityville Horror. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977.
• Kaplan, Stephen & Kaplan, Roxanne. The Amityville Horror Conspiracy. Belfry Books, 1995.
• Hans Holzer. Murder in Amityville. Belmont Tower, 1979.
• Osuna, Ric. The Night the DeFeos Died: Reinvestigating the Amityville Murders. 2002.
• Cromarty Family Interviews (owners after the Lutzes who disputed hauntings). Reported in Newsday, New York Times, and various Long Island papers (1977–1979).
• “High Hopes: The Amityville Murders” documentary, 2020.
• Amityville Horror (1979 film) and The Amityville Horror (2005 remake) for cultural influence.
• News reports: New York Times archives (Nov–Dec 1974, coverage of the DeFeo murders and trial).
• Court documents from People v. Ronald DeFeo Jr. (1975 trial transcripts).
• Interviews with George & Kathy Lutz (e.g., Good Morning America, 1979).
• Gerald Brittle. The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren. iUniverse, 1980s (for Warren’s perspective).

In this episode of Loreplay, your host Dayna Pereira dives deep into the Mothman flap — from the Scarberry and Mallette chase to Marcella Bennett’s porch-side nightmare, to John Keel’s “high strangeness” theories. Was Mothman a bird, an alien, a government oopsie with wings, or a harbinger of doom? Buckle up, buttercups — we’re making deep eye contact with West Virginia’s sexiest cryptid.

Show Notes

What you’ll hear in this episode:

• The November 1966 Scarberry–Mallette sighting that started it all
• The strange fate of Newell Partridge’s dog, Bandit
• Marcella Bennett’s chilling close encounter at the TNT Area
• Dozens of witness reports through late 1966 and 1967
• The arrival of journalist John Keel and his “ultraterrestrial” theories
• Prophetic dreams that eerily foreshadowed the Silver Bridge collapse
• Theories: misidentified bird, mass hysteria, government experiment, alien, harbinger of doom, or cursed omen
• Connections to other “disaster cryptids” like the Black Bird of Chernobyl and the omen of Fukushima

Sources & References:

• Keel, John A. The Mothman Prophecies. New York: Saturday Review Press, 1975.
• Wamsley, Jeff. Mothman: Facts Behind the Legend. Point Pleasant: Mothman Museum Press, 2002.
• Wamsley, Jeff & Donnie Sergent Jr. Mothman: Behind the Red Eyes. Mothman Museum, 2005.
• Coleman, Loren. Mothman and Other Curious Encounters. Paraview Pocket Books, 2002.
• “Couples See Man-Sized Bird … Creature … Something.” Point Pleasant Register, November 16, 1966.
• “Silver Bridge Tumbles, Toll 7 Dead, 41 Missing.” Point Pleasant Register, December 16, 1967.
• Derenberger, Woodrow. Visitors from Lanulos. 1971.
• Various newspaper archives, local interviews, and accounts collected at the Mothman Museum (Point Pleasant, WV).

Follow & Connect:
🎙️ Subscribe to Loreplay wherever you get podcasts
📧 Share your spooky sightings: loreplaypod@gmail.com

📲 TikTok/Instagram: @LoreplayPod

Whether you’re a fan of creepypasta legends, obsessed with TikTok urban myths, or just love haunted history mixed with comedy, this episode of Loreplay has it all: terrifying encounters, bizarre theories, and Dayna’s signature comedic take on the world’s weirdest lore. Subscribe, share, and remember — when the knock comes, don’t let them in.

Site Sources 

• Wikipedia: Overview of the legend, origin, and folklore context
  Wikipedia
• Atlas Obscura: Deep cultural analysis and lasting impact
  Atlas Obscura
• Historic Mysteries: Early coverage on Brian Bethel’s account
  Historic Mysteries
• USC Digital Folklore Archives: Folk meaning and comparative legends
  USC Digital Folklore Archives
• Medium - Horror Hounds: Visual descriptions, storytelling tone
  Medium
• So Supernatural Podcast: Anecdotes and patterns in personal tales
  Wave AI
• Fandom / Creepypasta Files: Community lore structure and tropes
  creepypastafiles.fandom.com
• Kickstarter / Film Listings: BEKs in indie films like Sunshine Girl
  Wikipedia
• Business Standard: International folklore coverage and narrative patterns
  The Business Standard

In this episode of Loreplay, Dayna Pereira dives deep into the history, heartbreak, and haunted lore behind Sarah Winchester and her endlessly expanding Victorian mansion. Was she cursed by the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifle? Or was she simply a grieving genius with too much money and not enough therapy? We’ll unravel the facts, the myths, and the sheer chaos of the most famous haunted house in California.

For this episode, we drew from historical accounts, scholarly resources, and paranormal folklore archives:

1. Official Winchester Mystery House Website – winchestermysteryhouse.com

2. Mary Jo Ignoffo, Captive of the Labyrinth: Sarah L. Winchester, Heiress to the Rifle Fortune (University of Missouri Press, 2010)
3. Pamela Haag, The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture (Basic Books, 2016)
4. National Park Service – “Winchester Repeating Arms Company” historical summary
5. San Jose Mercury News archives on Sarah Winchester and the mansion’s construction
6. “The Haunted History of the Winchester Mystery House,” Smithsonian Magazine
7. Ghost Adventures, Travel Channel episode featuring the Winchester Mystery House
8. Winchester Mystery House museum tour archives and official press material
9. USGHostadventures https://usghostadventures.com/haunted-stories/why-the-winchester-house-is-
   haunted/#:~:text=The%20Pardee%20family%20was%20close,had%20a%20very%20loving%20marriage.
10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Winchester#Superstition_and_madness

From John Bell Sr.’s mysterious illness to Lucy Bell’s eerie protection, and from Kate Batts’ petty neighbor drama to the witchy shenanigans that terrified Andrew Jackson himself, this story has everything: curses, poltergeist activity, demonic sass, and enough Tennessee gossip to fuel a century of spooky sleepovers.

With a mix of historical research, folklore, and laugh-out-loud commentary, we unpack why the Bell Witch still haunts our imaginations today—and why she’d absolutely run a chaotic TikTok account if she were alive now.

Whether you’re here for the true crime-style timeline, the paranormal chaos, or just the comedic meltdown of a host who relates way too much to a vengeful spirit, you’re in for a ride.

📚 Sources for Loreplay Episode: The Bell Witch

• Ingram, M.V. An Authenticated History of the Famous Bell Witch. (1894).
• Bell, Richard Williams. Our Family Trouble: The Story of the Bell Witch of Tennessee. (Written in 1846, published 1934).
• Nickell, Joe. Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings. Prometheus Books, 1995.
• Johnston, Charles Bailey. The Bell Witch: A Mysterious Spirit of the Cumberland. (1930s pamphlets, later collected).
• Radford, Benjamin. “The Bell Witch Haunting: The Real Story.” Skeptical Inquirer (2012).
• Bell Witch Cave official site & tourism information: bellwitchcave.com

• Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture – Entry on The Bell Witch Legend
• Local oral traditions, legends, and retellings preserved in Adams, Tennessee historical society archives.

👉 Keywords: Bell Witch, Tennessee ghost stories, haunted history podcast, paranormal comedy, Loreplay podcast, American folklore, John Bell, Kate Batts, Bell Witch Cave, haunted Tennessee, spooky legends, ghost podcast, paranormal podcast funny.

🔗 Sources & References

• Warren, Ed & Lorraine. The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren. iUniverse, 1980.
• Spera, Tony. NESPR archives & public statements.
• “Annabelle: The True Story of a Demonic Doll.” Warrens.net.
• CT Insider – Annabelle the doll is going on tour

• CT Insider – Matt Rife, Elton Castee become legal guardians of Annabelle doll

• EW.com – Matt Rife buys Warren’s Occult Museum house

• I95 Rock – Annabelle Doll Left the Connecticut Museum

• US Ghost Adventures – The Wrath of Annabelle Continues Through the U.S.

• Times of India – Paranormal investigator Dan Rivera dies during Annabelle tour