Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Deal with the Devil

Transcript

Deal with the Devil · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Mythology is full of tricksters. The Norse have Loki, the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: shape shifter god. In West African folklore, there is a Nansi,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the god of stories, knowledge and trickery. And let's not
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: forget the Greek Prometheus who stole fire from the Olympians
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: to give to humanity. But of all these trickster myths,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: there's one that stands out the most during the Halloween season,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: the Irish legend of Stingy Jack. As his name suggests,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Stingy Jack was a bit of a selfish guy. He
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: was known for lying, stealing, and drinking. Rumors about his
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: vile behavior made it all the way down to the underworld,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: and the devil himself became fascinated by his most evil
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: of mortals. One night, Stingy Jack was taking a drunken
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: strolled on a dark cobblestone path, and he stumbled upon
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: what appeared to be a dead body. But Jack, a
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: born trickster, could not be tricked. He immediately realized that
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: the body was actually the Devil in disguise. Still, meeting
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Satan on a deserted street was never a good thing.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Jack assumed the devil was there to collect his sinful
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: soul and take it down to hell. Desperate to make
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: it out alive, Jack decided to try one final trick.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: He asked Lucifer for a little favor, just one last
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: pint of beer. Amused by Jack's insistance, Satan said sure,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: and the pair took off toward the nearest pub. After
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: downing way more than a single pint, Jack revealed his secret.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: He didn't have a cent on him. He needed the
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: devil to pay the tab. Now, being the ruler of
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the under the world, Lucifer didn't find it necessary to
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: carry cash, but he agreed to transform himself into a
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: coin only so Jack could pay the bill and then leave.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: As soon as Satan turned into a silver medallion, Jack
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: grabbed the coin and stuck it in his pocket, where
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: he also happened to be carrying a crucifix and that
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: crucifix kept Satan trapped. In order to escape, he had
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: to make a deal. In exchange for his freedom, Satan
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: promised to spare Jack's soul for ten years. It was
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: a good enough deal for Jack, so he pulled the
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: silver coin out of his pocket and he and Lucifer
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: went their separate ways. However, Jack had learned exactly zero
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: lessons from his near death experience. Ten years later, he
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: once again was out walking, drunk, stumbling down a cobblestone
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: path when he happened upon Satan. The devil was there
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: right on time, ready to cash in on their deal.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Of course, stingy Jack had something of a contingency plan.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: He told Lucifer that he was just so hungry, couldn't
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Satan climb an apple tree and grab him a snack
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: before carding him off to the under world, and the
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: devil made the mistake of saying yes. He climbed in
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: nearby tree, and as he plucked an apple from its branches,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Jack placed a circle of crucifixes around the bottom. Again
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Satan was trapped, and this time Jack made an even
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: bigger demand. If the devil wanted to get down, he
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: had to promise he would never bring jack soul to Hell.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Lucifer really didn't have a choice, he said fine. Jack
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: moved the crucifixes and Satan he tailed it out of there,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: not wanting to get caught in any more bad deals
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: with clever mortals. Some years later, Stingy Jack, who had
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: lived a full life of thievery, cons and a whole
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: lot of beer, finally died. When he knocked on the
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: door of heaven, God refused to let him in. This
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: must have been a shock to Jack, who thought that
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: he had this whole afterlife thing planned out. With nowhere
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: else to go, he trecked down to Hell and asked
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: his old friend Lucifer to let him in, but Satan
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: said no. They had a deal. After all, Stingy Jack's
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: soul could not enter the underworld. All the devil could
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: offer him was an ember, a tiny little piece of light.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: So Jack had made his bed, and now he had
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: to lie in it. He took the ember and placed
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: it inside a hollowed out turnip, which he carried with
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: him as a lantern. It lit his way as his
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: soul aimlessly wandered the earth, and this was what got
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: him the new nickname Jack of the Lantern. Now, in
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, Ireland people carved faces into hollowed out turnips,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Rudebega's beets and potatoes, and then they put candles inside.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Around All Hallows Eve, when the veil between the living
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: and the dead was thinnest, they placed the lanterns on
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: their porches, hoping to scare away Jack of the Lantern's
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: wayward soul. As people immigrated from Ireland to America, All
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Hallows Eve became Halloween, and they found a plant that
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: was larger, easier to carve, and made a much better
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: lantern pumpkins, And just like that, the Jack O' lantern
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: as we know it was born. So if you're carving
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: pumpkins this year, take a moment to remember the curious
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: tale of Stingy Jack and keep your candles lit just
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: in case his spirit comes knocking. If someone asked you
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: to draw a ghost right now, you would probably sketch
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: what's known as a bedsheet ghost, You know, the one,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: the round top, squiggly bottom, couple of dots for eyes.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: The image is frightfully ubiquitous. It appears in everything from
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: movies to art. In the Halloween decor isle at targets.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: That's even a bedsheet ghost emoji, which got me wondering
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: where did the idea that ghosts wear sheets even come from. Well,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: it turns out the image can be traced back at
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: least seven centuries. In the thirteen hundreds, ghosts were often
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: depicted in art as skeletons wrapped in burial shrouds. For
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: most of human history, people weren't buried in caskets or coffins.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: They were simply wrapped in sheets. If the dearly departed
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: came from an upper class family, they might be buried
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: in in that was made and decorated specifically for the funeral,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: and if they were from a lower class background, they'd
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: likely be buried in sheets pulled right off their deathbed. Still,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: it took a while for the shrouded skeleton to evolve
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: into the bedsheet ghost we know and love today, and
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: there were other versions in between. For example, in the
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, ghosts were frequently featured as characters
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: in plays. In the original production of Hamlet, the ghost
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: of Hamlet's father wore metal armor. This created a trend
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: in armor clad specters in the theater, but a few
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: centuries later a haunting in London seemed to cement the
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: bedsheet ghost as the most accurate portrayal. In November of
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: eighteen oh three, people in the western London neighborhood of
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Hammersmith reported seeing a ghostly figure prowling around town. The
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: figure was tall, slender, and clad in a white sheet.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: It was ostensibly the spirit of a man who had
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: died in Hammersmith the previous year, and locals kept seeing
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: him around town for months and it was starting to
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: freak them out. So they did what seemed most logical.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: They organized a ghost hunting team. In January of eighteen
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: oh four. The group set off into the night, intending
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: to take care of the haunting once and for all.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: One of these ghost hunters was a twenty nine year
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: old man named Francis Smith. As he and the rest
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: of the group searched for the spirit, Francis saw someone
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: round the street corner in front of them. It was
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: a tall, thin man dressed all in white. Certain he
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: had found the phantom, Francis raised his gun and fired,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: and the specter crumpled to the ground. Because it wasn't
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: a ghost at all. It was Thomas Millwood, a bricklayer
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: who had been walking home from his work in his
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: all white uniform, and sadly he died from that gunshot.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: It later came out that the entire Hammersmith hunting had
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: just been a hoax, but since Thomas Millwood really had
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: lost his life, a new legend emerged. It was said
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: that Thomas's spirit then stalked Hammersmith, and soon after this,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: an image of Thomas's ghost clad in billowing white sheets
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: was installed in a local museum. This helped popularize the
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: image of the bedsheet ghost in the English speaking world.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: A few decades later, over in the United States, a
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Missouri newspaper conducted a poll asking readers if they believed
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: in ghosts. One respondent wrote in, and I quote, ghosts
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: are nearly always white, although some of the authorities admit
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: there are dark ones. I should say, however, that the
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: genuine ghost is always white, that always makes its first
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: appearance at the haunted spot at precisely twelve o'clock midnight.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Based on this quote, it seems that there were still
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: some dissenting opinions on what spirits looked like, but white
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: was a safe bet, and maybe that's why. In nineteen
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: thirty nine, animators chosen all white designed for one of
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: the most famous phantoms in history, Casper, the friendly Ghost.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: It was really Hollywood and the budding film industry that
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: turned the once terrifying image of the bedsheet ghost into
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: something we now consider cute and fun. Throughout the fifties
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and sixties, animated bedsheet ghosts appeared in cartoons like Popeye
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: and Scooby Doo. Thus it became the go to design
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: for goules than pop culture, but some people thought it
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: was just a fad. In nineteen sixty four, a North
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Carolina newspaper reported, and I quote styles in ghosting are changing,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: dwindling in obscurity are the old fashioned groaning, flapping bedsheets
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: and the simple white objects which jump out of dark
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: places and say boo. And to that, I have one
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: thing to say, the ghost emoji begs to differ. I
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show and
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the worldoflore
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.