Lore - Episode 170: Into the Wild

Episode Date: May 10, 2021

Some of the most frightening kinds of folklore are the ones with a familiar element. Details that sit a bit too close to home. Qualities that resonate just a bit too much. And few places host legends more terrifying than the wilderness around us. ———————— This episode of Lore was sponsored by: The Great Courses Plus: Hundreds of topics taught by professors and experts, all in one enormous video library. Listen or watch on your computer or mobile device. Visit TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/lore today to start your special FREE MONTH of unlimited access to their full lecture library—and don't miss my newest recommendation: Why Evil Exists. Stamps.com: Print your own postage and shipping labels from your home or office. Start your 4-week trial today, which includes free postage, a digital scale, and zero commitment. Just visit Stamps.com, click on the microphone in the top-right of the homepage, and type LORE. Native: Native creates safe, effective personal care products that use trusted ingredients and performance. For 20% off your first purchase, visit NativeDEO.com/lore20 and use promo code LORE20 during checkout. ———————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com 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.

Same lettuce, same tomato, same pickle, same cheese, same bun. The exact same burger from the exact same restaurant, but with other delivery apps, your order costs more. Order with Skip, and you'll get the same food with lower fees and rewards points on every order. Did somebody say Skip? Fees vary by region and may be higher in some areas, exclude subscriptions and promotions. It wasn't what they expected from their hunting trip.

King George and his entourage had traveled all the way from London to the middle of Germany, partly to visit his homeland, but also to get in a bit of hunting. But what they found in the woods outside the village of Hamelin was wholly unexpected. It was a boy. According to descriptions, the boy was about 12 years old at the time. When King George found him, he was living naked and alone in the woods there, foraging for edible plants while walking on all fours. He intrigued the king so much that George had the boy brought back to England under the

care of his daughter-in-law, Caroline, the princess of Wales. The boy, who they soon named Peter, was unable to learn to speak, so it was impossible to learn his story. Some assumed he had come from a criminal labor camp near Hamelin, while others believed that he had been abandoned by his parents due to his developmental challenges. But back in London, his treatment was mixed. Yes, they made sure he was safe and taken care of, but they also leaned into his feral behavior, allowing him to perform at Kensington Palace like a trained animal.

Coming back with the benefit of hindsight in modern medicine, most historians today believe Peter suffered from a genetic disorder that caused severe developmental delays. But in the mid-1700s, people around him simply believed that he was wild. In the decades that followed, Peter the Wild Boy would become a living representation of an age-old debate. What exactly makes us human? Is it something we're born with, or can it be taught? And in the process, it demonstrates humanity's ancient fascination with an area of folklore

that exposes our fears, highlights our flaws, and begs us to question whether or not we've truly evolved as a species. Stories about creatures that shouldn't exist. Stories of the Wildman. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. If literature were a YouTube video, the epic of Gilgamesh would be the person typing the word first in the comments. Written close to 4,000 years ago, it's widely considered to be the oldest known work of

literature in the world, which makes it the starting point for a lot of concepts, and that includes the Wildman. In the story, we follow King Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu. The king represents civility and evolution, while Enkidu embodies the wilderness. But over the course of their time together, Enkidu is shaped and grown into a civilized person. But really, you don't need to know the plot. You just need to understand that four millennia ago, people were already thinking about the

big question, what makes us human? The ancient Greek writer Herodotus is considered by most to be the father of history because of his systematic approach, turning the collection of stories into an academic discipline. But in the process, he also documented some of the more unusual beliefs of cultures in his day. And for him, one land of magical beings and dangerous monsters was Libya. Situated to the south, across the Mediterranean Sea, Libya was just far enough away for most Greeks to believe that anything was possible there.

It was another world, populated by creatures like the Akifalloi, who were men with no heads but faces set into their chests, and right alongside them were the Wildmen. And these ancient writers did more than just name the Wildmen. They described them, too. One historian, Pliny the Elder, writing about 2,000 years ago, said that they had human-like bodies that were covered in fur, and in the King's Mirror, a Norwegian document from the middle of the 13th century, there are descriptions of a creature in the forest that is said to be entirely covered in hair, with a mane that runs down the center of its back.

There's even a town in Germany called Wildemann, which was settled in the mid-16th century by a group of miners who had encountered a pair of Wildmen in the nearby mountains. Clearly, it's a type of story that's been around for a very long time, and it's much more widespread than one would think. Because even after Europeans traveled to North America and explored the New World, they found similar stories among the indigenous people who already lived there. For example, among the First Nation people known as the Clalum in the Pacific Northwest, there are stories of mysterious creatures in the forest that avoid human contact, but

are to be feared and respected. Their descriptions are incredibly similar to those from ancient writers half a world away, too, with human-like forms, tall frames covered in thick hair, and a distinct lack of language. In the same region, the Coast Salish peoples are another First Nation culture with stories of the Wildman. In fact, their name for the creature, Seskouac, literally means Wildman. They tell stories of how the creature can put humans to sleep with just a touch and

have been known to steal food from human settlements, sometimes even kidnapping women or children. In some of their stories, these creatures are referred to as the Night People, sort of a friendly forest spirit, but other tales speak about them as a lost, dangerous tribe of their own, known in English as the Stick Indians, due to one of the ways the creatures communicate with each other, by pounding branches and large sticks on trees. In all of the First Nations stories, though, the physical descriptions have an eerie similarity. They all speak about the creature's height, ranging from 6 to 15 feet, and make mention of their thick layer of fur.

Stories about their appearance range from black to brown, and even auburn or mahogany in color. And then there's the smell. Tales from those who have encountered these creatures often describe the smell they bring with them. It's a foul combination of body odors like vomit, rotten flesh, urine, and feces, and with a dose of animal entrails and rotten eggs thrown in for good measure. It sounds horrible, but it's also memorable and weirdly consistent from legend to legend. And lastly, among the Alaska Native peoples known as the Athabascans, the creatures are

called the Nuhuan, which means wood men. They live as a sort of immortal trickster in the forest, moving silently through the trees and stealing what they need from the humans around them. The Nuhuan seem to have a place of reverence in the Athabascan culture. More of a legend than a reality. But they explain their lack of sightings by placing the blame on the creatures themselves, who rarely reveal themselves to humans. But if the stories are true, rarely doesn't mean never.

Curiosity is a strange beast. It lures you in and tempts you with amazing revelations, but can also leave you vulnerable to danger. And when it comes to stories of the wild men of the woods, curiosity is apparently the last thing we need. One such story comes to us from the Talawa people of Northern California, said to have taken place in the early 1880s and then passed on down through his family. One man reported a series of experiences in the wooded hills east of Crescent City, and

they began in his childhood. The man described hunting one day in his youth, alone in the forest with his rifle, when he spotted a shape in the shadows behind a tree. As he studied it, he realized that it was a large creature covered in thick hair, standing upright like a very tall human. Whatever it was, it walked off on its own a moment later. So the boy went straight home and told his father. He was informed that the creature was part of a quiet group that lived in the forest.

They shared the fruits of the woods with the Native Americans around them, but preferred to be left alone. And because they had never harmed any of the people in the area, it was understood that no one would hunt or kill them. But a later experience brought all of that into question. The family had spent some time at the river, catching fish and preparing them to be smoked. But when they returned home, the boy realized that he had left his knife at the riverside camp.

So later, he returned alone to retrieve it and discover that someone else was already there. The creature. He found it squatting near where they had cleaned the fish hours before. With its large human-like hands, it was scooping up the entrails from the fish and eating it raw. But when the boy came into view, the creature stood and roared in protest. He ran home as quickly as he could.

And honestly, I can't blame him. But encounters with these mysterious creatures weren't always so easy to escape. In April of 1891, a story was published in the Woodland Daily Democrats, a newspaper in Northern California. It described an experience that a man had in the Cape Valley area west of Sacramento, an experience that left him more than a little disturbed. The man, known only as Mr. Smith, had been out hunting early one morning when he encountered a creature he could only describe as a man clothed in a suit of shaggy fur sitting in

a tree above him. Smith called out to the figure and actually responded with a series of angry-sounding grunts. That's when Smith decided to drop everything and make a run for it. Glancing back over his shoulder, he watched as the creature climbed down and began to give chase. Thankfully, it gave up before Smith could reach camp, where he gathered his friends together and told them what he had seen.

After a good amount of discussion, they decided on the most American solution they could think of. They grabbed their guns and dogs and headed off to find the beast. When they returned to the spot where Smith had dropped his bag, they found the creature hunched over it, reaching in with massive hands to pull food out before mashing it into its mouth. At the sight of the thing, the hunting dogs dug their legs in and refused to go any closer. But they also whined, which alerted the creature of their presence.

Standing tall, it let out a monstrous roar while beating its chest with its fists and then turned and ran away. It was noted in that same article that a number of pigs and sheep had been disappearing from farms in the area, and the implication was clear. Smith had seen the culprit with his own eyes, and was lucky to survive the experience. But that wasn't enough to frighten everyone off, as an article from the following month makes clear. In early May, local man James Martin ventured into the woods there to track down one of his

horses. It had broken loose and vanished into the trees, so he went in after it. Not long after beginning his search, he found a trail, but it wasn't exactly what he'd been searching for. Judging by the way the underbrush had been trampled, something had dragged the body of a large animal through the forest, so Martin decided to follow it. He didn't find the creature responsible for the trail, but he did find the spot where it had stopped and feasted on the animal it had killed.

But with the light growing dim and no sign of his missing horse, he decided to return home and try again in the morning. But his night of sleep didn't turn out to be as restful as he had hoped. It was the sounds of his dogs that woke him up. They were outside, where they always were, keeping watch over the ranch and the livestock he raised. They were good at their job, too, and were known to be ferocious when necessary. So that's why their desperate whines sounded so out of character.

The moment Martin opened the front door of his cabin, the dogs rushed in. He described in the article how they crammed themselves under his bed, hiding from whatever it was they had seen. So Martin returned his gaze to the darkness outside. And that's when he saw it, a dark silhouette moving away from the cabin. And as it ran, it bellowed an unearthly scream. And Martin wasn't alone. Newspaper articles from the following month note that the creature's tracks had been spotted

more and more frequently. Some were found as far south as the town of Madison, 25 miles from the first sighting. And these tracks looked a lot like footprints from large, otherworldly feet. Martin did add a bit of reassurance in his report, though, letting the frightened readers of the paper know that he would not stop until he had captured the creature, dead or alive. Whether or not he was successful, though, isn't recorded. But the one truth we do know is also the most disturbing. Not everyone who encounters one of the Wildmen lives to talk about it.

It wasn't his experience, but thankfully he wrote it all down for us. Ted was born in 1858 in New York City, a place that most of us wouldn't associate with wilderness and the undiscovered. But thanks to his family's wealth, he was able to get out of the city from time to time and enjoy the natural world, something he quickly fell in love with. As a child, it's said that he roped his cousins into helping him create his own Natural History Museum, where he displayed his own attempts at taxidermy. Honestly, if he sounds like an unusual child, that's probably because he was.

But that doesn't make his story any less important. In fact, I think it helps. Life threw Ted some curveballs early on, though. He married his college sweetheart in 1880, but four years later his wife and his mother both passed away on the same day, both right inside his home. And those tragedies became a catalyst that pushed him west, away from his family and job and all those responsibilities. By the summer of 1884, he was in the Badlands, in a part of the west that would become the

state of South Dakota just a few years later. He bought a ranch, settled in, and fed his love for the natural world through hikes and hunts in the wilderness. And that's how, during a trip to the Bitterroot Mountains south of Missoula, Montana, he met a man named Carl Bowman. Bowman had moved from Germany to the American West in the mid-1800s and shared Ted's love of nature. But not all of his experiences in Montana had been cheerful, and he told Ted about an event

he would never forget. According to Bowman, it took place in the 1860s while on a hunting trip with a friend. But as we'll soon discover, who was doing the hunting isn't exactly clear. Bowman and his unnamed friend had settled on entering a pass through the mountains that had seen recent tragedy. A year prior, a hunter had ventured into the pass only to be found a few days later, his body torn to pieces and half eaten. Maybe it was curiosity that led Bowman to pick this area, or maybe it was arrogant courage.

What they found, though, tested them to the limit. After leaving their horses at the foot of a rocky incline, the men ventured into the trees and set up camp in a clearing. They spent an hour or so building a lean-to and unpacking their supplies, and then headed out to set traps and do some hunting. When they returned at sunset, though, they found their brand new camp destroyed. Bowman had come into the clearing, knocked over their shelter and torn through their supplies looking for food.

Assuming it was a bear, they quickly rebuilt their lean-to before they lost all of the light and then straightened up the mess. But when they were done, they lit a torch and inspected the scene and discovered unusual tracks all around the camp, tracks from an animal that walked on two legs, not four. Somehow though, they found the courage to turn in for the night. They had a lot planned for the following day and needed their rest. But sometime around midnight, Bowman claimed that a noise woke them both up, and the moment they did, they could both smell something foul and disgusting on the air, like the scent

of rotting animal mixed with filthy, wet hair. Looking out through the opening of the lean-to, both men could see a black shape silhouetted against the night sky, blotting out some of the stars above. Bowman reached for his rifle and fired into the darkness, but the shot missed. Thankfully, the sound of the gunfire frightened the visitor off, and they spent the rest of the night sitting beside the fire, hoping the lights would keep them safe. The next day, they got to work, checking traps they had set the day before. But rather than split up as they had originally planned, they decided to stay together.

There's safety in numbers, after all, and they didn't want to take any chances. When they returned to camp that evening, their hearts sank. Whoever had destroyed their camp the day before had come back to do it again. The same large footprints were also scattered about, as plain as if on snow, Ted later wrote. Rather than rebuilding camp again, they simply built a big fire and settled in to keep watch. And sure enough, around midnight, the visitor returned, although this time it remained off in the distance, watching them, with only the sounds of its movement through the trees to give it away.

With sunrise came new hope and new plans. They decided that their trip needed to be cut short, and I'm sure the story of the hunter from the season before was front and center in both their minds. They didn't want to end up like him, so they decided to quickly gather their traps, pack up camp, and head back to their horses. But as they worked, they were plagued by the feeling that they were being followed. At noon, they stopped for a quick meal, and then made a change. Bowman would go gather the three remaining traps near the camp, while his friend would

pack up their gear. They would speed up their departure for sure, but it would also put both of them in greater risk, and it would turn out to be a fateful decision. Bowman claims that he found the traps full and took the time necessary to kill and prepare the animals. By the time he finished, it was early afternoon and quickly headed back to camp, but when he stepped into the clearing, he found it empty. Their supplies had been neatly packed and arranged to one side, but the fire had been

allowed to die out. Bowman called out as he stepped toward the fire, and that's when his eyes fell on a shape stretched out on the grass beside the log they had used as a seat. It was the body of his friend, the man's neck bent at an unnatural angle, and bloody teeth marks below his jaw. In an instant, Bowman understood what had happened. His friend had finished packing and then sat down in front of the fire to wait for him to return.

And as he did, the creature had somehow snuck up on his friend and snapped his neck while trying to bite him. Why it didn't do more damage and why it wasn't still there were questions that he couldn't answer, but he knew that he didn't want to stay and find out. Abandoning the supplies, Bowman grabbed his rifle and sprinted in the direction of their horses, praying as he ran that they were still there and untouched. When he found them, his heart leapt to see them both still standing and waiting, and he quickly prepared to ride away from the hills and the creature that haunted them.

As the sun was setting behind the hills to the west, he climbed into the saddle and rode hard for safety. It took him all night, but when he finally made it home, he allowed himself to drop his guard, put aside his rifle, and finally get some rest. His friend, however, hadn't been so lucky. Humans are very good at being afraid of the others. We've seen this time and again through stories about witch trials, where people who fit in the least are often the first to be accused and mistreated, but when it comes to tales

of the wild men of the woods, that fear takes on a very different tone. Throughout history, it seems people all over the world have shared stories about beings that were incredibly similar to them, but also vastly different. Human enough to spark affinity, but monstrous enough to inspire dread, and rather than fade away as our cultures have evolved, it seems those stories have simply retreated a little deeper into the shadows, but they're still there, if you know where to look. And if the tales I've shared with you today feel familiar, that's thanks to decades of pop culture, because all those old stories about tall hairy frames and big feet eventually

earn the creature a name that's become undeniably universal. Bigfoot. But there are other names, too. I mentioned a while ago that among the Coast Salish people, the word for wild man is sesquach. For decades, though, we've used a variation of it as an alternate name for Bigfoot, the sesquach. And just about everywhere you go, the oldest cultures in every location have their own corresponding term.

The wild men of the woods seem to be everywhere, or at least on every tongue. Of course, that fascination has translated into a subculture of its own. There is a seemingly endless supply of TV specials, podcasts, and books. The creature has become a standard plot device and fictional stories set in the woods. And there are even multiple serious Bigfoot research organizations. Heck, that seemed toward the end of the Christmas movie Elf, where Will Ferrell's character buddy is shown walking through Central Park on slow, grainy film footage. That's a not-so-subtle callback to what's probably the most famous Bigfoot footage

ever captured, known as the Patterson film. But that popularity has also inspired a number of hoaxes. Thankfully, though, just about all of them have been debunked. Still, some sightings have yet to be dismissed or disproven, and a great example took place back in the fall of 2005. That's when a couple driving through the mountains of the West saw something they would never forget. They claimed that as they were driving along a stretch of highway, a shape stepped out of

the trees about 40 feet away. Both of them described it as tall and hairy, and at first they assumed it was a bear standing on its back two legs. But when it began to run, the creature's human-like movements quickly changed their minds. What makes this sighting so fascinating, though, isn't the description of the creature. No, it's the location. This couple spotted it while driving up Highway 93 in Montana, within sites of the Bitter Root Mountains.

Exactly the same place where Carl Bauman had his terrifying experience back in the 1860s, as he related to Ted, the man who wrote it all down. And of course, we could dismiss his story as well, if we wanted to. One lone person claiming to have witnessed something unbelievable, just sharing his folktales with a friend over a meal. Except that friend was a pretty well-respected source, even if most people wouldn't associate him with stories about Bigfoot. Ted, you see, was a man destined for greatness.

He would go on to serve as governor of New York, before eventually being elected in 1901 to the highest office in America, as the 26th president of the United States. His full name, Theodore Roosevelt. When it comes to Bigfoot, everyone wants to talk about footage, photos, and those neat and tidy plaster casts of the tracks it left behind. But in truth, it's the oldest stories that form the foundation for those legends, and they still have a lot to offer us. And if you stick around after this brief sponsor break, I'll share one more of my

absolute favorites. The first thing we need to understand is that these men were pros. They'd been working together since 1918, prospecting for gold in the foothills of Mount St. Helens, up in Washington State, and they understood what it took to live there, to survive there. There were five of them, all focused on tracking down the most elusive thing in the hills there, gold. They'd even built their own log cabin, using it as a home base.

It wasn't a home worthy of architectural digest, and it didn't have any windows, but it also wasn't just a few branches propped up on a log, what some might call a lean-to. No, it was home, and it provided them a good amount of safety. In 1924, though, that protection would be tested. In July of that year, one of the five men, a guy named Fred Beck, told the others that he had a toothache and asked his friend Hank to drive him into town to see a dentist about it. Hank was the only one with a vehicle there at the camp.

Hank refused, though. Every day they didn't go out looking for gold, he told them, was a lost opportunity. Be a man, tough it up, stop complaining. Whatever platitude you can think of, that's probably what Hank told Fred. So as you might imagine, tensions were running a little higher than normal that month. But something else began to contribute to that anxiety. For about a week, all of them had been hearing sounds outside the cabin each night. They would catch the sound of a high-pitched whistle in one direction, only to hear a similar

response far off in the woods. And they also claimed to hear a loud thumping sound as if someone were hitting a tree with a large branch. During the day, though, the sounds seemed to vanish. Although that didn't mean everything was normal. All of the men, seasoned mountain prospectors, were beginning to believe that they were being watched, possibly even followed as they went about their work. And then one day in late July, they discovered why.

That day, Fred and Hank took a walk down to the nearby spring to get some water for the camp, but brought their rifles along for safety. As they neared the watering hole, Fred stopped and held out a hand to point at something. It was a massive creature, taller than a human, covered in dark brown hair. And before Fred could say anything, Hank brought his rifle up and fired. Two shots echoed through the forest, and while none of them found their mark, the creature seemed to be frightened off and began to run through the trees. For a heartbeat, it seemed to have disappeared from view, but a moment later, Fred caught

sight of it again and brought his own weapon up, firing at the moving target. And then they quickly retreated back to the cabin. Once inside, they told the other three men about what they'd seen. All that anxiety, all that suspicion that they were being followed, all of it was true, and the thing that had been tracking them wasn't a person or a bear. No, it was something otherworldly. It was agreed by all that they would break camp first thing in the morning. Yes, cutting their work season short was less than ideal, but dying at the hands of some

strange monster was far worse. So they barred the door, loaded their rifles, and tried to get some rest before the busy day ahead. But as darkness fell, they began to hear sounds outside the cabin. Then a heavy crash seemed to rock one of the walls, shaking some of the mud out from between the logs of the building. And with that, all hell seemed to break loose. Stones pounded against the walls, footsteps could be heard on the roof, and more thumping

rocked the door. According to Fred, some of the gaps in the log cabin were wide enough that one of the creatures actually reached in through it. Its large, hairy hand grasped that thin air for a moment before brushing against an axe that had been propped against the wall. It quickly picked it up and nearly pulled it out through the opening. More hands broke in through different places, and each time it happened, one of the men would turn and fire at it.

Others were shooting straight up, trying to stop the creatures on the roof of their cabin from breaking in. And the door they had barred began to lean deeper into the room, forcing them to break apart one of the beds to find a piece of wood large enough to bolster it. No one knows how long the assault carried on, but it was late in the night when the pounding and noises began to fade. None of the men slept that night, although, really, I don't think any of us can fault them for that.

Their veins were full of adrenaline and fear, and there would be no rest for them until they were far, far away. When morning finally did arrive, they cautiously stepped outside to inspect the damage, and to make sure the coast was clear. This footprints covered the ground around the building, and large stones and branches were scattered all about. But everything seemed safe. That is, until Fred looked out toward one edge of their clearing, where the ground gave

way to the lip of a small canyon about 80 yards away. And there, standing on the edge and watching them, was one of the wild men. Not willing to give it a chance to attack, Fred raised his rifle and fired, and this time, miraculously, his aim was true. The creature staggered back, brought a large hairy hand to its chest, and then toppled over the edge. I don't need to tell you how quickly the men left camp that morning, or that they left behind most of their supplies and gear.

All you need to know is that all five men left without looking back, and for a very long time even refused to speak about it. When they did, Hank was the first to break their silence, although Fred would later return to the spot with reporters and rangers, giving birth to what he referred to as the Great Hairy Ape Hunt of 1924. Whether they found what they were looking for, though, remains a mystery. Oh, and if you ever have the chance to hike in the forest on the eastern edge of Mount St. Helens, be sure to avoid the area where it all took place, a spot whose name harkens

back to that terrifying night, and is on all the maps today. Ape Canyon. This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Taylor Hagridorn and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There is 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 and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think you'd enjoy. My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical. You can learn more about all of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place, grimandmild.com. And you can also follow this 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.