Lore - Episode 130: In Plain Sight

Episode Date: November 25, 2019

Before cell phones and internet access, learning about the world around us took a lot of time. Along the way, there would be gaps in our knowledge—holes that human cultures tended to fill with folklore. And while the creatures they invented to fill those gaps were amazing, it’s how close they often got to reality that makes those stories truly frightening. ———————————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  Lore News: www.theworldoflore.com/now  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In early winter of 1822, Captain Samuel Barrett Eads became a hero. He was sailing in the southeast Pacific when he and his crew encountered a Dutch ship that was in trouble. Eads managed to save every single one of the Dutch soldiers and then headed for the city of Batavia, known today as Jakarta, to drop them off and see if a reward could be collected. While he waited, he did some shopping. Now, Eads wasn't rich by any stretch of the imagination, but he owned a small portion of the ship he sailed, and of course, he was expecting a handsome reward for his heroic

efforts. With this in mind, he kept an eye open for something unusual and conversation-worthy to take home. And that's when he saw it. It was a mummified mermaid. It was over two feet long, had the curved tail one might find on a fish, but the upper body of something much more human in shape. It was brown from the preservation process, wrinkled with age and entirely addictive to

look at, and Captain Eads knew instantly that he had to own it. In late January of 1822, he did something bold. He sold the ship he did not fully own and used the proceeds to buy the mermaid. Then he found transportation back to London and put the odd creature on display, because just about everyone who saw it believed that it was real. Of course, there were those who could see through the hoax. Captain Eads had been fooled by a clever craftsman who had sewn the torso of an orangutan onto the lower half of a large salmon.

Mermaids were added to the face and hands to give it a more human-like appearance, but those with training in natural science and anatomy could spot the hidden clues that gave it all away. That didn't matter to most people, though. The idea that mermaids could be real had been around for centuries, so when something as powerful as a mummified specimen floated into their world, they were blind to its flaws and impossibility. They wanted to believe, deep down inside, that the hybrids of folklore actually existed.

Today we know a lot more about our world than we used to, but if we were to go back in time and live through a less learned age, we would be amazed at the stories that await us, tales of creatures that sit at the very edge of our imagination, living things that defy logic and monsters that inspire wonder. Our hearts want to believe while our minds are ready to move on. Instead, what we tend to feel is a mixture of deep curiosity and primal fear. And if the tales from the past are any indication, there's a good reason why. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is LORE.

When we talk about the natural world, the very first thing we need to do is gain some perspective. Today we live in a technologically rich society. We carry supercomputers in our pockets that are more powerful than the ones that sent the first humans to the moon. We can walk past an intriguing part of our neighborhood, pull out our phones, and look at a satellite map or do a search for more information. We're still hungry people, curious, and drawn to unanswered questions.

But rather than starving in a house with little food, we feast each day on a never-ending buffet of answers and information. Today, if you want to know something, chances are good you can learn about it in an instant. But hundreds of years ago, that was an impossibility. Not that people didn't try, though. Two thousand years ago, a Roman named Gaius Plinius Secundus attempted to gather everything knowable into one place, and he did an admirable job considering the world he lived in. Gaius was born into a wealthy Roman family in the year 24 AD and followed a path of privilege

all the way to the top. He was well educated, well connected, and when he entered the Roman military, he quickly rose to the second highest level possible, the equestrian order. Once out of the military, he served as a lawyer before being assigned various governorships around the empire, and toward the end of his life, he had the privilege to serve as an advisor to two different emperors. Today we know him as Plini the Elder, but in his day, Gaius was a success story. Looking back, his biggest legacy was his 37-volume collection of knowledge called Natural History.

It was possibly the world's first encyclopedia, gathering everything known about a whole array of subjects, from farming and botany, to geography and anthropology, but the most influential contribution, filling up volumes 7 through 11, were his writings on zoology, the study of all living creatures. But here's the thing, Plini the Elder, like everyone else in his society, lacked the proper tools to dig deep and apply hard science to every creature he wrote about. He also lacked the ability to travel and see each animal he described, so he relied heavily on others, like Aristotle's Historia Animalium and the writings of Eratosthenes and Hipparchus,

and that meant his collection was less than perfect. How so? Well, his work on zoology included such amazing animals as dragons, mermen, and even something called a blameii, a race of hairy human-like beings who literally had no head on their shoulders, with eyes and a mouth right in the middle of their chest. Plini was thorough, for sure, but not very discerning with his source material. But what his work did do was give birth to something a lot of people have heard of, a type of book known as a bestiary.

It took a while for their availability to spread, but by the early Middle Ages, bestiaries were a common enough resource. They were, at the basic level, books about known animals, typically with colorful drawings to help the reader visualize the specific details of each entry. And over the centuries, some editions became more popular than others. One of the most famous is the Aberdeen Bestiary, an illuminated manuscript that dates back to the 12th century. Aside from being a beautiful example of medieval artwork, and I mean that, you should seriously

do an internet search for sample pages, the Aberdeen Bestiary is also a powerful example of just how popular these books really were. It's filled with images of all sorts of animals, along with rocks, fish, trees, and even worms. And a lot of the entries in the manuscript include notes about the nature of the thing in question, making it a valuable reference tool for anybody naturalist. But these bestiaries did more than that. They inspired the popular culture of their day. England's King John, who reigned from 1177 to 1216, was said to have a copy of Pliny

the Elder's natural history in his personal collection. And John's son and successor, King Henry III, even used images from it to decorate one of the chambers at Westminster. As their popularity spread, more and more writers got in on the tradition. The Norman poet Philip Dutton wrote a bestiary about a generation after William the Conqueror invaded England, and it became a gift for King Henry II's wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Even Leonardo da Vinci made one. It seems if you were an intelligent person in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, making

your own bestiary was practically a rite of passage. And let's be honest, colorful manuscripts filled with images of unbelievable creatures and animals that defied logic couldn't not be popular. Humans have this innate desire to look at curious things. We've always been rubber-neckers, straining to take a long, hard look at things that sit outside our normal experience. And the spread of bestiaries is proof of that. But those ancient books and manuscripts also teach us something else about ourselves.

Human beings are creative creatures. When faced with a mysterious gap in our knowledge, we're more likely to invent something to plug the hole than to leave the question unanswered. And what we've come up with is equal parts entertaining and downright terrifying. I mentioned earlier how the internet and the accessibility of powerful devices has given us an edge over our predecessors. And in a lot of ways, that's true. Yes, we have access to a huge majority of our collective knowledge, but not all of it.

In fact, there are still things we don't know. For example, scientists today believe that there are roughly 8.7 million animal species on this planet. And yet 86% of the ones that would live on land still haven't been discovered or studied. And it's even worse inside our oceans, where over 90% of life is still a mystery to us. We know a lot, yes. But our world is massive and diverse. And that makes the learning process slow and tedious.

Some animals are also a bit harder to track down. They're less abundant or more shy, and so it's made studying them more of a challenge. A good example is the platypus. For a very long time, scientists thought the descriptions of it were nothing more than a hoax. I mean, it was rumored in 1799 to be a hybrid of a duck and a water rat, part mammal and part bird, with venomous spurs that could kill a dog. And while we've learned more about them over the years, the platypus is still an elusive

creature. A recent documentarian was able to get what he considered to be a goldmine of actual footage of the animal, amounting to about 30 seconds. And when only half a minute to film is something to celebrate, you know the animal is hard to study. Of course, while we're searching for new species, the ones we do know about are slowly dying off, which doesn't help. Some estimates place the number of species on the edge of extinction at around 20,000,

and more get added to that list all the time. For the medieval riders of bestiaries, this would be their worst nightmare. All those creatures belong in their books, and yet they keep slipping away. But at the same time, not being able to see an animal never really stopped those ancient riders from including it in their catalog of life on Earth. In fact, there are a lot of entries that would cause most people to scratch their heads. Because while, yes, we've grown in our understanding of the world around us, these bestiaries serve as a time capsule of our gullibility.

As far back as Pliny the Elder's collection on natural history, we can see those less believable creatures pop up. He once wrote that thousands of sea nymphs known as nereids had washed up on the shores of what is modern-day France, and that they looked just like the nymphs of the land, except that they were covered in fish scales. He also wrote about that fiery bird of legend known as the phoenix, which was known to burst into flames before reemerging from its own ashes. And of course, I've already mentioned his fascination with mermen and blemii.

It seems that Pliny the Elder had an obsession with gathering all-known creatures, whether or not he had witnessed them with his own eyes. Other historians added their own contributions to those mystical lists as well, and if I ran through it for you now, it would sound like a recap of the Harry Potter series. Hippos and elephants shared the same space as hippogriffs and mandrakes. There were dragons and tritons, giants, and sea monsters. Honestly, it sometimes seemed that if a young child could draw a picture of it, that was good enough to get it included.

Of course, some creatures were more popular than others, and that popularity varied from culture to culture. In Europe, one of the most talked-about creatures of all was also one of the smallest. But don't let its size fool you, because there was nothing safe about the basilisk. Our old friend Pliny the Elder wrote about it 2,000 years ago, describing it as a serpent with legs that was no larger than a foot in length. But what it lacked in size, it more than made up for with attitude and special features. A basilisk was said to stand tall on its back legs, and had a crown-like plume on top of

its head. And they were dangerous too. According to the stories, basilisk were so poisonous that even looking at them could get you killed. Other creatures avoided them like the plague, and wherever they chose to make their nests, the plant life would die and wither away. One description I read said that if a man on horseback stabbed a basilisk with a spear, the poison was so powerful that it could climb up the spear, kill the man, and then kill

the horse as well. Of course, when something is that powerful and deadly, it eventually becomes the centerpiece of Tales of Valor. It's said that Alexander the Great once killed a basilisk, and like many of the other legends about him, he did it in a way that proved not just his might, but also his intelligence. It's said that he polished his shield until it was like a mirror, and then approached the creature, holding it outward. When the basilisk saw its own reflection, it fell victim to its poisonous gaze, and

instantly dropped dead. We can find images of the basilisk in just about every bestiary in existence, most of which look like a cross between a snake and a rooster. There's a statue of one in Vienna commemorating an 11th century hunt, and there's even a church in Sweden with a carved relief showing St. Michael stabbing one with a spear. So popular was this creature that people sold powders that they claimed to be ground up basilisk, something that most people purchased for use in alchemy, but more than a few used as an antidote to poison.

Where you look through the Middle Ages and earlier, the basilisk is waiting to rear its poisonous little head. You can see society's attraction to it in their folklore and superstition, a mixture of fear and fascination, of wonder and disgust. For centuries, it popped up in stories whispered all around Europe, like a well-loved character in a popular book series. But if one account is any indication, it might not be a work of fiction, after all. The people of Warsaw had a problem on their hands.

They were two decades into a new political structure known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and while it gave a lot of freedom to the wealthy and elite, it left the lower class in a constant state of fear and oppression. Life in the city was challenging for many people, but that was the new normal. In 1587, though, something happened to put the people of Warsaw on edge. Livestock in the area around an old ruined building had begun to turn up dead. Even a few of the neighboring residents had been found poisoned in their beds, washing over the community with a wave of grief and loss.

And in the midst of all that confusion and pain, two of the neighborhood children disappeared. Well, disappeared might not be the right word for it. Folks had seen the two young girls playing near the ruins. They had watched them laugh and skip and revel in the freedom and joy that came with childhood, most likely muttering quiet prayers that it would last as long as possible. The neighbors knew what sort of hard life awaited those girls once they were old enough to work and carry their own weight. Their joy must have been bittersweet.

And then someone watched them step inside the ruins. That was the first reason to worry. Folks avoided the ruins for a good reason. It was dark and dangerous, and the cellar beneath it had been a den for all sorts of animals. So whoever it was that watched them disappear into the shadows, most likely headed over to warn the girls' parents. When everyone arrived at the ruins to call them out, though, they were no longer visible. While there was a good chance they had simply moved on to a new playground, someone decided

to peer inside the dark cellar. And there, laying on the broken stone floor, were the sleeping forms of both girls. So one of the older women stepped inside to wake them. A moment later, though, she collapsed into a heat beside the girls, sending the growing crowd into a panic. They didn't know what was causing the people inside the cellar to lose consciousness, but they knew there was something dangerous about the dark space. So they sent for a firehook, a long pole with a metal hook on the end, and then reached

in and pulled each body out into the light. All three of them were dead. And not just dead, they were bloated and dark, as if they'd been dead for days. Most frightening of all, though, was that their eyes seemed to be protruding from their sockets. No one could be sure, but it almost looked as if they'd been frightened to death. Wanting answers, they sent for Benedictus, the king's very own physician. If anyone would have the skill to identify the danger, it would be him.

And sure enough, after taking a long look at the trio of bodies, he brought them a definitive answer. All of them had been killed by a basilisk. In an instant, the atmosphere around the old ruins changed. Newcomers came to watch, while leaders gathered to form a plan. Something had to be done, and just like the stories all of them had grown up with, it seemed that a basilisk hunt was in order. But the trouble was, no one wanted to risk their lives by entering the cellar to kill

it. Not even Benedictus, who seemed to know the most about the creature. But they had an idea. A group of leaders from the community quickly headed to the local jail, where two men awaited execution for various capital crimes. Each man was given the same offer. Come kill the basilisk, and you will receive a full pardon and your freedom as a reward. It seemed like an easy choice, too.

Inside jail, there was no chance of survival. Outside, though, there was at least the possibility they might survive. It made sense to everyone. The first criminal declined the offer. But the other one, a man named John Farer, agreed to help. He was escorted from the jail to the old ruins, where Benedictus awaited him with tools and instructions. The townsfolk had quickly gathered dozens of small mirrors, and sewn them onto a pair

of leather pants and a coat. I imagine John gave the old physician a sideways glance at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. But at the same time, he would have known the folklore just as well as everyone else. Alexander the Great had defeated a basilisk using a mirror-like shield, so why would it not work for him? With a crowd of over 2,000 witnesses watching, John began to carefully walk into the ruins, where he entered the cellar. He had a long rake in one hand, and a torch in the other to light his way.

And as soon as he stepped into the darkness below, he cried out that he could see it, a long, serpent-like tail, with a head that resembled that of a rooster, right down to the crown-like plumage. Benedictus called out instructions to the man. Grab it with a rake, he told him, and then carry it out here into the light. John shouted back that he understood, and the entire crowd began to shift and rumble. If a basilisk was going to be dragged out of the ruins, no one wanted to be around to see it.

So they all ran for cover and hid their eyes. When John emerged, he held the writhing creature by the neck in one of his gloved hands. The daylight somehow made it weaker, and that gave Benedictus the courage to step closer and examine it. It looked exactly like the besties of old had taught him. The body of a snake, four long legs, and a head that looked very much like a rooster. But sadly, this is where the account of the basilisk hunt ends. Whoever had been recording the events had most likely been in the crowd, and when John

had begun to emerge from the cellar, they had followed the crowd into hiding, which leaves the ending a bit of a mystery. Who killed the creature when all was said and done, and how did they do it, knowing the risks the old legend spoke of? What we do know is this. The Warsaw Basilisk Hunt of 1587 was the last time the creature was reported anywhere in Europe. Maybe it had been the last of its kind, and its death marked its extinction.

Or perhaps the few that survived had a knack for staying out of sight, like the Platypus of Australia. Either way, all that was left from that moment on were legends and stories. Like so many creatures that have once walked the earth, the basilisk, if it was ever real to begin with, has slipped into the shadows of the past. And it's never been seen again. There really is something delightful about the bestiaries of old. Their colorful pages and evocative descriptions were beyond sensational.

In a world without television, radio, or easily accessible works of fiction, those catalogs of natural history were the closest most people could get to traveling the world. Of course, the things most authors chose to include in their bestiaries would probably never make the cuts in our modern times. After all, headless tribesmen with eyes on their chests, unicorns, and sea nymphs all feel more like characters in a fantasy novel than entries in a study on the world's flora and fauna. And yet some of those expectations have been broken over the years.

For centuries, sailors told stories about the Kraken, enormous sea creatures that could reach out and drag an entire ship underwater with its long tentacles. Being Sperre of Norway recorded its description way back in 1180, and for hundreds of years, people claimed to spot them in the waters of the ocean. Then in 1853, the carcass of a giant squid washed up on a Danish beach, giving the legend new life. Over the century and a half since then, scientists have determined that there is indeed a giant sea creature that fits the ancient descriptions.

Give or take a few sinking ships, of course. And while they've been challenging to catch on film, we now know they exist. And those mermaids of old might have roots in actual animals as well. Many scientists and scholars now believe that old reports of mermaids could very well be mistaken sightings of an aquatic mammal known as the manatee. As is so often the case, our misunderstandings had given birth to frightening legends, only to have science bring a bit of clarity to the tale. Sometimes the monsters of the ancient world turn out to be real.

And sometimes legends inspire new discoveries. In the part of the world that stretches from Mexico to South America, scientists have been familiar for over a century with a lizard from the Iguana family. It's not the largest reptile around, but it can grow to around two feet in length, and it can run at amazing speeds. Some scientists refer to it as the Jesus Christ lizard because of its strange ability to run across the surface of water. But its most common name is based on other features, like its tendency to run on two

legs and its serpent-like body. A body that's topped with a head and plumes reminiscent of a crown or a rooster, which is why its name is both logical and a bit of a throwback. They call it the basilisk. There's something enticing about the mysteries that fill the gaps in our knowledge of the world around us. Looking back at the bestiaries of the Middle Ages, it's clear humans have had a lot of fun filling those holes, and the creativity of the past has continued to inspire stories

today. But there's one more creature I want to tell you about. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to learn all about it. They had fallen in love, and it was something that would change their destiny forever. At least that's how the legend tells it. Long ago, a young man lived on a small island surrounded by deep blue seas, and in the process of hunting one day he encountered a beautiful young woman. But the hunter quickly learned that there was more to her than he could see with his

eyes. The woman, it turns out, was a fairy. In fact, she was well known to the locals there, who referred to her as the dragon princess. Despite their differences, him a normal human being, and her a magical fairy, the two of them fell in love and were soon married. And that helps this tale become one of those happily ever after stories that we all love so much. The couple went on to have twins, a boy and a girl, and just like their parents, they

were an odd pair. The boy was just like his father, a human with no magical powers of his own, while the girl took on after her mother. And because of that, both parents decided that the children should be raised in separate places to help them fully become who they were meant to be. According to the legend, it was many years later when the son was out hunting, just as his father had taught him. He was creeping through the forest, his spear balanced in one hand when he spotted a deer.

He quickly threw the weapon, which found its target, and a heartbeat later the young man was carefully making his way over to collect his prize. And that's when the dragon stepped out of the trees. It was enormous and frightening, and it clearly wanted to take the deer that he had just killed. The young hunter spoke to it, begging it to leave his future meal alone, but the creature ignored him and proceeded to move toward the deer. So he lifted another spear and got ready to take aim at the dragon. Suddenly a figure stepped out of the shadows of the forest and stopped him.

It was his mother, the fairy princess, who he had not seen since his childhood. And as she approached him, she spoke a word of warning. Do not throw that spear, she told him, or that is no ordinary dragon. That is your sister. Instead, she taught him to live in harmony with his sister. And according to the legend, that fateful meeting set the destiny of their entire community on a new path. Even today, if you were to visit the place where they lived, the people there would tell

you that they are descended from dragons, illustrating how that harmony has continued. And of course, this story is just one of many tales about dragons that fill the pages of folklore. In fact, most of us would be hard pressed to find a creature mentioned more often than those magical beasts. From the 11th century legend of King George and the dragon to the fantasy novels and television shows of our modern world, they really do seem to be the king of monsters. Dragons are also one of those nearly universal creatures.

It seems just about every culture around the world has had some version of them in their folklore. The ancient Egyptian god of chaos was Apophis, represented as a giant serpent. The Babylonians had their own god of chaos, called Tiamat. And in Akkadian mythology, there were not one but three dragons on display. Norse mythology features a giant serpent who gnaws at the roots of the world tree. In Ukrainian folklore, there is a dragon with three heads, while images of dragons can be found all over medieval heraldry.

And of course, few cultures on earth hold as tightly to their dragon mythology as the Chinese, who have been decorating objects with images of the creature at least as far back as the Neolithic period. And we could speculate why, I'm sure. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see how the accidental discovery of dinosaur bones might spark fear and wonder in the minds of humans thousands of years ago. The places where stories of dragons are most common are also places where such fossils have been uncovered, so it does make sense.

So when Europeans arrived on an island in the Flores Sea, just south of Indonesia, they probably didn't think twice about the local stories about dragons. In fact, those tales were probably a bit old hat, as they say. Dragons lived in caves, breathed fire, were vicious killers and could fly when necessary. Nothing about all of that was new. What was new, though, were the things they saw there. On an island surrounded by deep blue sea, an island full of people who believed they were descended from dragons, mind you, they discovered a creature that brought all of

their legends to life. It lived in the caves along the shore. It was an enormous killer, and it sometimes even followed its prey up into the trees. It ticked all the boxes. These were 300-pound serpent-like monsters that could bring down a half-tonne water buffalo. When they licked the air with their bright red tongue, it looked as if they were spitting fire, and they even dug into the graves of the dead looking for treasure. Of course, that treasure was always food, not gold.

And they're still there, crawling across the sandy beaches of the island, living in harmony more or less with the people who still call the place their home. They might not have wings or piles of gold and treasure to curl up on, but they are the largest lizard on earth, measuring in at over 10 feet in length. And they're deadly. Sometimes the tales of the past stay shrouded in mystery, and other times we manage to crack the riddle and shed new light on the shadows that once frightened us. This living flesh-and-blood dragon seems to offer a fresh answer to an ancient question,

however incomplete it might be. But at least we now know that there really is one place in the world where that old cartographer warning is actually true. Here, on Komodo Island at least. There be dragons. This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Michelle Mudo and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast.

There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more Lore in your life. I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. You can learn more about both of those shows and everything else going on over in one central

place, theworldoflore.com slash now. And you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.