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Lay an Egg · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
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  Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of curiosities. Visits from strangers aren't always
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  Speaker 1: a good thing, Whether it's members of the local high
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  Speaker 1: school football team knocking on your door in the middle
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  Speaker 1: of a Sunday nap, or the strangers with candy that
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  Speaker 1: we warn all of our children about. Unannounced guests can
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  Speaker 1: often signal a frustrating or frightening situation. Every now and then, however,
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  Speaker 1: expectations are broken, and those chance encounters leave us feeling
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  Speaker 1: more human and connected than we ever could on our own.
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  Speaker 1: Helping a stranger out with a flat tire, for example,
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  Speaker 1: more stopping to have a conversation and a cup of
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  Speaker 1: coffee with some one less fortunate. But every now and then,
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  Speaker 1: those strange encounters are something more. Sometimes they're unexplainable. In
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  Speaker 1: April of sixteen seventy one, a Swedish farmer named Peter
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  Speaker 1: rom gave sworn testimony about just such an encounter, one
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  Speaker 1: that had happened to him and his wife back in
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  Speaker 1: sixteen sixty. According to the man. He and his wife
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  Speaker 1: lived on a farm just outside of Ragunda at the time,
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  Speaker 1: where they worked hard and enjoyed the peace and solitude
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  Speaker 1: that came from life outside the larger community. One evening, though,
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  Speaker 1: Peter and his wife retired to the little cottage after
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  Speaker 1: a long day of work on their farm and fell
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  Speaker 1: into conversation in front of the fire. As those orange
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  Speaker 1: flames danced in front of them and the quiet of
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  Speaker 1: the night surrounded them, an unexpected knock sounded at the door.
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  Speaker 1: When Peter opened the door, he found a small figure
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  Speaker 1: standing before him. Firelight from inside the house spilled on
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  Speaker 1: the visitor, making him visible against the black night behind him.
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  Speaker 1: The visitor was a small man, shorter than a grown adult,
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  Speaker 1: yet had the features of a mature, older man. But
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  Speaker 1: that wasn't the only thing unexpected about his appearance. No,
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  Speaker 1: this man was also described as having a dark complexion,
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  Speaker 1: something that must have stood out in the pale north
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  Speaker 1: of Sweden. Even the visitor's clothing was odd, seeming to
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  Speaker 1: be made of old gray fabric that caught the light
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  Speaker 1: in another worldly way. And when the door opened, this
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  Speaker 1: visitor looked up at Peter and spoke, I require your help.
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  Speaker 1: The smaller man told Peter, my wife is with child
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  Speaker 1: and has begun her labor, and she could use very
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  Speaker 1: much the assistance of someone more experienced than me, And then,
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  Speaker 1: glancing past Peter's larger form, the small man made eye
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  Speaker 1: contact with Peter's wife, who was still seated beside the fire,
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  Speaker 1: watching their conversation intently. Do you think the visitor asked,
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  Speaker 1: your wife would be willing to come with me and
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  Speaker 1: help my own wife deliver our child. Peter was speechless.
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  Speaker 1: This mysterious man, this visitor from some strange place, who
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  Speaker 1: had never met them before, had arrived to ask for help,
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  Speaker 1: and not just help, but for Peter's own wife to
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  Speaker 1: venture off without him, out into the darkness of the night,
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  Speaker 1: with no guarantee for her safety or return, and yet
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  Speaker 1: he felt compelled to help. According to Peter's testimony, he
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  Speaker 1: claims that he had returned to his wife's side and
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  Speaker 1: discussed the matter with her. In the end, she agreed
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  Speaker 1: that she should help, but before she left the house,
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  Speaker 1: Peter read some prayers over her to bless her, and
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  Speaker 1: then sent her on her way. I can't imagine what
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  Speaker 1: that night was like for Peter. How long he sat
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  Speaker 1: alone beside the fire, I do not know. His wife
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  Speaker 1: had taken a stack of old linens with her, and
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  Speaker 1: most likely a stash of herbs and medicinal aids. But
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  Speaker 1: the minutes slowly became ours, and those hours probably felt
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  Speaker 1: like an eternity. But by ten o'clock that night, his
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  Speaker 1: wife had returned. According to her, the strange small man
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  Speaker 1: had led her out the gate of their farm earlier
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  Speaker 1: that night. As he did, Peter's wife claims that she
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  Speaker 1: felt as if she had been caught up in the wind,
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  Speaker 1: and before she knew it, she was standing inside a small,
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  Speaker 1: dark chamber, a chamber, she said, that contained a bed
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  Speaker 1: and a pregnant woman in great pain. Peter's wife said
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  Speaker 1: that she did exactly as she was asked. She helped
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  Speaker 1: the man's wife through her labor, and in the end,
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  Speaker 1: the happy couple was able to hold their new child.
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  Speaker 1: The man offered her food, but she declined, telling him
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  Speaker 1: that she wished to return to her home and her husband.
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  Speaker 1: So the small man caught her up in another mysterious wind,
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  Speaker 1: and she once again found herself standing at the gate
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  Speaker 1: of their farm. The next day, Peter and his wife
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  Speaker 1: awoke and fell into their normal routine managing the farm
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  Speaker 1: and all that came with it. But while cleaning one
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  Speaker 1: of the rooms, his wife came upon the oddest thing.
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  Speaker 1: They're sitting on a shelf in plain sight, a shelf
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  Speaker 1: that she looked at every single day. It was a
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  Speaker 1: pile of shimmering objects. But when she gathered them up,
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  Speaker 1: she caught her breath. It was silver, dozens of small
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  Speaker 1: pieces of beautiful, valuable silver, payment she assumed for the
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  Speaker 1: help she's so kindly offered to a stranger. Sometimes it
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  Speaker 1: seems it does pay to be kind. The English language
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  Speaker 1: is full of a lot of unusual idioms phrases that
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  Speaker 1: sound like one thing but have an entirely different meaning.
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  Speaker 1: Some of them come and go with the times, a
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  Speaker 1: bit like fashion trends, while others stick around. Either way,
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  Speaker 1: they can be either a source of delight or confusion
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  Speaker 1: for those who hear them. Take, for example, don't put
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  Speaker 1: all your eggs in one basket. It's a great warning
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  Speaker 1: design to help people make wise decisions about how much effort, investment,
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  Speaker 1: and hope to put into a particular endeavor. And there's
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  Speaker 1: also don't count your chickens before they hatch, meant to
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  Speaker 1: urge caution when enthusiasm gets the better of us. And
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  Speaker 1: in keeping with our egg theme, there's also the phrase
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  Speaker 1: lay an egg. For a very long time, it's been
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  Speaker 1: an idiom that simply means to perform poorly. A local
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  Speaker 1: theater group that botches a performance of Fiddler on the
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  Speaker 1: Roof might receive a bad review in their local paper
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  Speaker 1: that claims the director laid an egg. I think you
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  Speaker 1: get the idea. To lay an egg is to fail
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  Speaker 1: at something, but not always. In fact, once there was
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  Speaker 1: a woman who built her life around laying eggs, and
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  Speaker 1: she had much success with it. Her name was Gertrude Smith,
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  Speaker 1: and as a child in York, Pennsylvania, she discovered that
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  Speaker 1: she had the most amazing ability. According to her, she
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  Speaker 1: could stand near her chicken coop and silently mentally command
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  Speaker 1: them to lay eggs. Not just any eggs, though these
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  Speaker 1: were eggs with images on them. Don't take my word
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  Speaker 1: for it. Here's a short quote from the York Gazette
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  Speaker 1: and Daily, a newspaper in Pennsylvania near where she grew up,
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  Speaker 1: who interviewed her many years later in nineteen forty. I
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  Speaker 1: would stand near the hen yard and visualized sunflower petals
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  Speaker 1: along with my initials. In a few days, my father
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  Speaker 1: came into the house all excited and said, here is
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  Speaker 1: the sunflower egg. According to Gertrude, the designs weren't just
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  Speaker 1: made out of color. Instead, they were physically inset into
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  Speaker 1: the hard surface of the egg shells, so deeply in set,
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  Speaker 1: in fact, that they were visible from the inside of
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  Speaker 1: the shell as well as you can imagine. Seeing results
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  Speaker 1: like that was a complete shock to Gertrude and her family.
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  Speaker 1: She had done nothing more than stand near the birds
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  Speaker 1: and envisioned sunflowers, and yet there they were, engraved by
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  Speaker 1: some other worldly hand on the shell of an egg
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  Speaker 1: that had just been laid. In fact, it was her
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  Speaker 1: excitement that led to that article about her in nineteen forty.
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  Speaker 1: She had grown up since those early days, but kept
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  Speaker 1: a small handful of those egg shells to show friends
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  Speaker 1: and impress visitors, and in her letter to the gazette
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  Speaker 1: she offered to show those shells to a reporter. When
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  Speaker 1: she showed up at the office of the newspaper a
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  Speaker 1: week later, they confirmed what she had claimed. They were
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  Speaker 1: a handful of egg shells, each bearing the striking image
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  Speaker 1: of a sunflower with its round center and radiating petals.
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  Speaker 1: The paper published to follow up to confirm that Gertrude
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  Speaker 1: had indeed pass their test. But all good things must
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  Speaker 1: come to an end. It seems that Gertrude wasn't so
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  Speaker 1: sure about the safety of her new found gift. If
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  Speaker 1: she could use her mind to physically alter the shell
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  Speaker 1: of a chicken's egg, what if she destroyed one by mistake.
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  Speaker 1: Wondering if her amazing ability was limited to cute floral engravings,
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  Speaker 1: she spent some time with her chickens again, this time
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  Speaker 1: visualizing an egg with the triangular cross section cut out
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  Speaker 1: of it. When the chicken lay the egg, Gertrude was
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  Speaker 1: horrified to see that her instructions had been followed to
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  Speaker 1: the letter. From that day forward, Gertrude Smith refused to
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  Speaker 1: use her powers to alter another egg. What the world
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  Speaker 1: saw as something special and a huge success, she could
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  Speaker 1: only see as a failure, And in doing so, I
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  Speaker 1: suppose she brought the old idiom to life. At least
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  Speaker 1: in her mind. Gertrude Smith was the one who laid
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  Speaker 1: an egg. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
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  Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple podcasts,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
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  Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
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  Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
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  Speaker 1: and television show and you can learn all about it
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  Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious. Ye